


Evolution of a Frame

by Ziffy



Category: Warframe
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Past Character Death, Second Dream Spoilers, The Sacrifice Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2019-11-13 07:23:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18027302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ziffy/pseuds/Ziffy
Summary: She was the first one, and she will continue to be the guardian, no matter what happens.





	1. Awakenings

She found me.

Deep in the forests of the mother planet, she whispered into my dream. She urged me to get up, to fight for my life. And so, running before I remembered how to walk, I did. Many, many corpses littered my path as I fought against those that would wish me harm. Their warcries turned to cries of pain as I exercised my power, flinging them across the battlefield. I kept fighting, not knowing who or what I was, not sparing a second to think about that. After all, she urged me onwards, and I felt the need to follow that voice.  
Much later, when the forest had finally gone quiet, and there were no longer any whimpers of pain, she told me to go. And so, I stumbled to the ship sent to fetch me.

He found me.

An annoying voice, glitching every once in a while, kept pestering me. And yet, he had my best intent at… heart? So I couldn’t fault him for that. He apologized for his disheveled state, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t remember what this place was supposed to look like, after all. And so, I cleaned the ship up, and fixed everything that needed to be repaired. They both spoke to me, and I listened, following their orders. After all, what else was I to do?  
There was a war going on. An ever-evolving, many-sided war. She would tell me the place, and I would go. I would crush all of those that stood in my way, fling them across the battlefield, or riddle them with holes with my weapons. I rescued many people, recovered much data, and protected many artifacts. But for every one of those accomplished, a sea of red was left in my wake.  
I never once felt guilt about this. The yellow ones were twisted creatures, ever increasing in pain from their own malformed bodies. Perhaps it was even a mercy that I killed them. The ones in white rarely fought for themselves, instead commanding legions of robots. There is no need to feel remorse for destroying a machine that can’t think for itself, merely a puppet on its master’s strings. Then, there were those other… things. They were no longer alive, in a sense. Killing them was allowing their souls to finally be at rest. After all, beings that are no more than a head being pulled by arms, or something whose torso is completely wrenched around, any creature like that must be in horrible pain. Killing them is saving them.

I found him.

After countless corpses laid behind me, they spoke to me. I could make another of my kind, to help in my battles. Of course, I did so. I painstakingly went through the system, collecting parts, getting the things he told me I needed. She showed me where the blueprints were, and I retrieved them. Of course, this cost even more lives of those that waged their eternal war. And so, I started constructing him. Many days later, the doors into the room with the chair opened, and I saw a shiny new body in the chair. It was a large, well-muscled body, tinged similarly to the sands of Mars that I had grown so used to. Then, the world went black.

They found me.

I woke from a chair, and flexed my enormous frame, still sore from… something. I looked around, and saw doors leading out of the room into a hallway. In the hall, a thin female form lay crumpled. Something about her made my heart feel warm, though. I took her, and gently put her in one of the cryopods belowdecks. They then spoke to me, and though I remembered them, things seemed a little fuzzy. I remembered killing many, but the hands in my memory didn’t seem to be my own.  
They gave me a mission, and I executed the task. I charged headlong through the crowds of enemies, bellowing a deafening challenge at those that dared face me. My thick skin deflected their every attack with hardly a scratch, and I cleaved my way through their ranks. Through the corner of my eyes I could see others like me doing the same, but that didn’t concern me, I only had eyes for the enemy.  
She congratulated me on another mission well done, and he fretted about the mess of blood that I tracked into the orbiter. I grunted at him, and washed my body off. Then, I sat in the landing craft, and stared out into space. It seemed so very vast when I looked at it. I often forgot this fact, since the junctions let me travel so quickly. Then, even that little light from the stars failed to reach me.

I woke up, and at first I was worried. How long had I been asleep? Their voices hadn’t spoken to me in what seemed like forever. But wait, hadn’t they just talked to me yesterday? What was yesterday? I tried to sort through my memories. I remembered killing even more, but the memory didn’t seem my own. My arms are slender and graceful, after all. The ones in my memory are thick and covered in armor. What is going on? I got up, and realized that I had been in a cryopod. How odd, I thought to myself, climbing up to the landing craft. Upon entry, I saw a massive figure sprawled out on the floor, almost as if it were looking at the stars. But wait, wasn’t I looking at the stars? My memories seemed to be a mess. I was that graceful figure I saw reflected in the window. But wasn’t I also that one sprawled out on the floor?  
My mind couldn’t take this for now, so I dragged the massive body down and shoved it in the cryopod. I decided then that I would start seeking the company of my own kind.  
I went to the relays, and mingled with other warriors like myself. Some were garishly painted, others more subtle. I decided to experiment with coloring myself later. Among the conversations, I heard whispers that even more powerful warrior blueprints had been unearthed. This sounded like a valuable thing to have for myself, so I vowed to acquire them.  
She guided me through the task. Void energies were seeping into the area, corrupting all that it touched. My mission, of course, to save those people from their fate by removing them from existence. The small round object that I held in my hands began to crumble away, and my head was filled with knowledge. I now knew how to make another powerful warrior, and she would be my sister. 

I found her.

Many days later, much like before, I eagerly waited by the room with the chair, and when the doors opened, I looked inside. There was a gilded body in there, thin and beautiful like myself, but with much different abilities. Then, I felt something very odd, almost like my soul left my body. But I still stood, and before the world went black, I saw my sister stand.  
I rose from the chair, and stretched. I was a little stiff, but I wasn’t totally sure why. I gazed out on the world with fresh eyes, but the room looked so familiar. Why was that? Then I heard someone collapse outside the room, and went over to investigate. A thin female figure lay there, and for some reason I knew what to do. I carefully laid her down in one of the cryopods belowdecks, near another pod housing an enormous frame. Memories started flooding into my head, then, but they didn’t seem my own. I recalled tearing through enemies with my bare hands, and tossing them about with my mind. But that felt odd, after all, I couldn’t do that. To prove it, I started summoning some antimatter before he told me to quit it.  
At this point, I couldn’t take it any more. What was I? Why did I remember other people’s lives? And so, I asked her, that mother that had been with me for so long that I was meeting for the first time. She simply replied that I was a Tenno, merely a dreamer. I didn’t know how to respond to this, so I let the matter slide.  
I had carved my way through the majority of the solar system at this point. It all seemed so small to me, who could leap between the planets without a second thought. And yet, I always stared out into the vastness of space through my lander’s window, and marveled at how small I was. And then, much like before, but was it really before? I don’t remember anymore. The stars went black too.

Yet again, I woke up, shaking off the cold from my unforgiving bed. When I got up, I felt the most bizarre thing, an almost nostalgia at being myself. That’s odd, I wondered. I’ve always been myself, and that’s that. Why would I feel so comfortable in my own body? And then the memories flooded into my mind. This time, there were new arms that I saw. From the slender fingers shot small dark orbs that wreaked havoc on those enemies that they touched. I marveled at the efficiency of this, and then realized that they were my sister’s arms. To think, that those more powerful warriors the others talked about were this strong. I climbed up to the lander, and saw her sprawled out, so I tucked her into a cryopod.  
The other memories never really bothered me. I was confused by them, sure, but I was myself, and that was that. The memories of being other people seemed like a dream, and while I knew that they were the memories of my brother and sister downstairs, I didn’t think on it too hard. After all, for some reason when I was myself, I was so much more at peace. I have no idea why that is, though. Aren’t I always myself?  
Then came that fateful day, when everything started going wrong. I had reached Uranus, and saw something strange. It was a robot, but it wasn’t of the Corpus or the Grineer. She, my mother, got worried. I had never seen her like this, and I got worried too. And so, she sent me out. The more I saw, the more afraid I grew. Another man was talking to me, to her. Mother seemed afraid, and had me destroy the excavation site of the Grineer. I did so, and she seemed relieved, if only for the moment. But now, I had questions. She was hiding something from me, and I wanted to know what it was. But she urged me not to worry, and had me go off again, destroying lives so that I might save others. In time, I stopped worrying so much.

I found them.

She distracted me by pointing to locations of data for even more warriors, and I jumped at the opportunity. I painstakingly gathered materials, and days later, I again stood by the door, waiting for it to open. When it did, I was greeted with a figure clad in white. Yet again, I felt that wrenching sensation as my soul left my body, but my mind was still my own. In fact, my memories seemed clearer than normal. I watched as the figure climbed up from the chair, and I took a few steps toward him, before falling to the floor as the world went black.

I saw the figure take a few steps toward me, and then fall over. I rushed to her side and picked her up, a deep love welling up in my heart when I looked at her… face? Memories flooded into my head of being her, and being others. But I stood up, looked down at myself, and jumped into my next mission.  
I froze all those that stood in my way, and they shattered with the most sickening noises. But I was safe in my dome of ice, so none of them really bothered me. I looked down at the face of a sleeping figure in the cryopod I was defending, and wondered who they were. Eventually, an extraction team came, and we left.

I woke up again, still feeling the tingle of cold on my fingers, before that sense of peace at being myself settled in. I remembered the drill by this point, and went to fetch the white clad figure in the landing craft.  
Several days later, those doors opened again, and my soul left. I saw the figure get up, and I carefully walked towards her, but I felt so much more steady on my feet. I walked up to her, and gave her a hug, breaking away after a while from the heat she gave off. I felt a little faint, so I leaned on her, and she guided me to a cryopod, where I gratefully laid down and went to sleep.

She gave me a hug. Something about that seemed strange, but I wasn’t sure why. I could tell that she was very tired, though, so I led her to a cryopod, careful not to burn her. I looked at her sleeping figure, and I felt that new, yet old sensation of love for this figure. She was so serene laying there, but I could tell where the nicks of battle had left their marks. There were some scars around her body, telling of the many injuries she had sustained. But she was just as beautiful as ever.  
And so I went out, and set the world on fire. All of them burned when they dared approach me. 

I woke, and once again fetched the sleeping warrior from the landing craft. Again and again, I welcomed new brothers and sisters from those doors, and every time, when I felt my soul leave, I was able to walk further, see more, and center my own memories that were mine alone. Whenever my soul left (at least that’s what it felt like), my mind always became so much clearer. Eventually, I found that I didn’t need to sleep when my soul left. I would wait for my brothers and sisters to return when they went off on their own. I would welcome them home, and patch up their wounds. And every time, my soul would return, and I would be flooded with memories of their day. This became normal for me, and I didn’t mind it at all. 

Then, Mother scared me. She told me that I was in danger, that someone was coming to kill me. But it wasn’t me, it was someone on another world. Mother showed me the way, and I went.

And I found Her.

I ran through the white and gold hallways, frantically looking for the location Mother pointed out. When I arrived, a pod rose from a pool of water, and I felt my soul leave again, and I fell to my knees. For some reason, I couldn’t move this time, though I still saw what was happening. The pod opened, and someone even thinner and more graceful than I fell out of it. She crawled toward me, and when she touched me, I found that I could move again. I picked her up, and went to where my ship was waiting.  
But when I entered the orbiter, I felt a sense of dread. I went to a door that had never opened before, and was greeted with a most unwelcome sight. That terrifying man that had hounded us several times before was waiting. But that little figure that I was holding scared him away. I gently placed her in the open throne, and backed up. But then, the most intense pain flared through my body. I looked down at my chest, and saw a large sword going through it, and I fell to my knees. The terrifying man had never left, he was just waiting. I saw him start walking toward the throne, and I knew I had to defend her. I grabbed at the blade in my chest, and broke it in half, tearing it out. I rushed at the man and skewered him, but he vanished in a puff of smoke. And then, the world went black.

I saw her fall. Blood dripped from a hole that went all the way through her body, and I was horrified. What was I supposed to do? I cast out my mind, and saw all of the vessels waiting for me. I picked one at random, and then I climbed up from belowdecks as quickly as I could with my enormous, heavily-armored body. I picked her up, and presented her to the chair, which immediately set about stitching her up. Then I rose from my throne and I went to go look at her, fearing for the worst. They spoke to me saying it would be alright, with Mother giving encouraging words, and the ship raging against the intruder. The chair then made shooing motions, as if to say it wanted to work in private, so I left.

I woke up, and a dull ache radiated from my chest. I got out of the chair, and went outside, and almost tripped over a small figure curled up by the door. I carefully picked her up, and placed her on the throne. I then felt my soul return, and I finally realized that my soul was this girl. But I was still myself, right?  
Mother thanked me for getting this girl back. The ship cried out in joy at the return of the real operator. I felt a pride at having accomplished this, at saving this fragile little thing. And then, my soul left again. I went to the throne, and saw her get up, and walk toward me. She gave me a hug, and thanked me for everything. I could tell that there was something between us, a bond that could never break. She looked down at the scar on my chest, and ran her tiny fingers over it. “I’m so sorry that this happened,” she whimpered, tears streaming down her face. I pulled her close, and gently patted her head, reassuring her that it was ok, and that I was glad she was safe.  
She smiled, and wobbled back to her throne. This time, though, I didn’t feel my soul return. Instead, I heard one of the other warriors wake up and head out on a mission that Mother had been bugging us about. I was ok with this, though, since my body still was hurting from having a sword put through it.  
And so, many days, many weeks went by. Sometimes she would take me out on missions, and sometimes she would take the others. But for some reason, I was the only one that ever stayed awake. When she left the others, they always slumped over, just as lifeless as a doll, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.  
Then, Mother disappeared. The girl cried, curling up in my lap as I held her. I couldn’t bear to see this child so hurt. When she finally fell asleep, I went and tore through a Grineer ship, detonating the whole thing after killing its occupants to work off some stress. I had to protect this girl. Our Mother had left us, and this child was so young and afraid. Something stirred in me, something that I am still unsure of what it is. I decided that I would have to protect this child. I went down to Earth, and shoved a pile of credits at one of the shopkeepers, along with a written note for some of the nicest clothes they could manage. I didn’t know how to make the girl stop crying, but something in me said this might help.  
When I returned to the ship, she was staring out the window of her living quarters. I presented the clothes I had gotten, and she looked pleased. She tried them on, and luckily they fit. Seeing her, dressed in something beautiful, a sense of pride welled up in me.  
We went to a relay again, and heard murmurings of more powerful warrior blueprints being discovered. The child whispered into my mind that she was curious, and so we set out.

We found her.

Just like so many times before, the round object in my hands crumbled away, and knowledge of how to build another frame entered my mind. But when it did, my blood ran cold. This wasn’t some new warrior, this was a stronger version of myself. I was scared and confused. If there was a stronger version of myself, and my child built it, would she need me any more? Would she still love me the same way? Or would she throw me out, like so many disposable robots that the Corpus used? I knelt down in the middle of the battlefield, the void energies in the area slowly dissipating. After a minute, an hour, a day, I don’t know how long, I got up and entered the ship waiting for me.  
When I got back, I went to her throne, and pointed to her head, then my own. I think she understood, and I felt her mind enter my own.  
It’s a strange thing to have a conversation with someone else in your own head. Since it happens at the speed of thought, our conversation probably took no more than half a minute, but it seemed like hours. I showed her the blueprints, and told her my concerns. I asked her what she would do if she built this frame, and whether she would need me any more. I showed her the fear that was in my heart at being abandoned by her. But at the same time, I said that I understood whatever decision she would decide to make, and that after all, I was only a puppet for her, and that I wasn’t even real myself.  
I felt her recoil from this, and heard her shout in my mind that I was special. I was the only one of her frames that had its own mind. I was the only one that had consoled her, defended her, and been there since the beginning. She said she would never abandon me, no matter what happened. Then, I felt her leave my mind. She climbed out of the throne, and ran to me, tears streaming down her face. “I love you,” she cried. I held her, and felt a wrenching from my chest down to my stomach. I held her, and if I could have cried, I would have.  
After her tears dried, she got up, and a strange look crossed her face. “Wait for a minute,” she said. She got in the throne, and I heard someone climbing up from belowdecks. It was that twisted frame, the one that seemed more disease than warrior. He motioned for me to stay there, and went into the room with the chair, closing the door behind. After what seemed like ages, he came back out and returned to a cryopod.  
She woke up, and ran up to me. “I know what we can do!” she exclaimed. “Go in and sit on the chair, trust me!” I looked hesitantly at this child, but decided to do so. She seemed to have decided my fate, and no matter what it was, I was ready to accept it. I loved this little girl, and she loved me. No matter what was to come, I would bear it.

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the feeling of power running through me. I got up, and while I saw that my body was my own, there was an air of grandeur to it. The child was waiting for me at the door, smiling. I walked toward her, and she rushed into my arms. I felt her enter my head, and she spoke to me. She told me how she never wanted to leave me, and wanted me to never leave her. So she wanted to give me a present. Much like how I gave her clothes, she gave me a new body. She had asked the chair if it was possible to directly upgrade my body, leaving my mind intact, and it had said yes. A surge of happiness went through me, and I picked the girl up and spun her around. She started laughing. “I’m so glad you like it. You will always be my one and only mothe- I mean…” and tears started falling down her face again.  
After she finished crying, I heard her speak in my mind. She told me of how worried she was about our Mother, but that she was happy that I was always there for her as another mother. She talked about how lucky she was, and how she wanted us to be happy. Hearing her call me her mother sent a strange feeling shooting through me. I had a faint vision of a face, surrounded by a blanket curled in my arms. That vision was gone as soon as it came though, and I was left with a feeling of regret, for some reason. I resolved to never leave this child. I would always stand by her side and support her, no matter what would come. I would wipe away her tears, and destroy any that dared try to hurt her.  
While she was still in my mind, we decided that we should seek out the Lotus.

We will find her.


	2. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past may come back to haunt us, but it must be accepted in order to look to the future.

My child had been dreaming again. Sometimes in her dreams, there were happy things, other times when she dreamed, it was while controlling one of my brothers or sisters. But this dream was different. When she woke up, she came running to me, tears streaming down her face. I held her, and waited while she collected her thoughts.

“The Lotus showed me something, but I’m already forgetting what it was. All I remember is a clearing on Earth, where a thin blue man was talking to a black frame. Something bad happened, I’m sure of it.”

I patted her head, and nodded. I walked her back to her throne, and sat her down. She smiled at me, and as her eyes closed, I felt our two minds become one. Her memories flooded into me, memories of being so many different people, and of being herself. But even though all of these memories were present, I never lost myself in them, like I had so long ago. It felt less like I was being overwhelmed by the girl, and more like we were walking in step, with her providing me with even more strength. And so, despite Ordis’ cry, we set out in pursuit of her dream.

 

We found him.

 

The ghouls posed little problem for us. They are even slower and stupider than the normal Grineer, and we danced between them, a shower of red tracking our movements. We came to a door, and after prying it open, we came upon a beautiful clearing, with Lua appearing full above us. I felt my child recoil at the sight, and I paused. When she recovered, I continued on. The first thing I noticed was a strange sword right in the middle of the area. She whispered me to grab it and keep looking, she felt there was more. As I searched, I found pieces of a body. _Who has this kind of strength, to rip my kind apart?_ I wondered. The child somehow conveyed shrugging shoulders through our link, which amused me. I collected the pieces that I could find, and returned to our ship.

When I got back, the child was waiting for me. I showed her what I found, and she examined the pieces. When she touched the frame’s head that I had found, however, her eyes went blank, and she stumbled backwards. When she recovered, she told us what she saw. This frame was a special Excalibur, and he tried to go against his master, someone named Ballas. She gathered up as many of the pieces as she could and ran to the chair. It took them, and started fitting bits together, but stopped after a short while. Ordis said that there wasn’t enough here to finish him, and that we needed to find more data. He pointed out a potential location, and we went.

When my child took control of me this time, I could tell something was off. She was scared, deep down, but was trying to hide it. Whatever memories she saw from touching that frame, I didn’t pry into. But my resolve to defend this girl hardened even more. We ran through the great Orokin halls of Lua, fending off more of those strange machines. When we worked our way to the center of the vault, we found a curious little device. I picked it up, and ran back to the ship.

I gave the little thing to the girl, and she played with it for a while, before moving towards one of Ordis’ access points. He complained that there could be severe consequences if that was plugged into him, but the child did so anyways. The ship rocked, and went dark. She clung to me, and I could feel her fear. I prepared for battle, but that proved unnecessary, as eventually the lights came back on. Ordis spoke to us again, calling her star-child. For some reason, I got offended at this, as she was my child, not his. I wondered why this was for a moment, but let it pass. Apparently the chair had enough information now, and was finishing the repairs.

We waited at the door, not with eagerness, but with dread. Everything surrounding this frame seemed cursed, and I was prepared for the worst. The door opened, and the girl entered, approaching the black figure on the chair. When she tried to link with it, though, I felt a vicious crackle of void energy as he rejected her. I was stunned at this, as I had never encountered another frame with its own mind before. I was too slow to react, though, and before I knew it, the monster had her pinned to the wall, his hands around her throat. I had hesitated a moment too long, and I dashed towards him, but as I got close, I saw her reach up to touch his face, and time came to a stop.

Somehow, I got drawn into the dream too. I could faintly feel my child’s presence, but I mostly felt an unknown person. A blue figure occupied one side of the room, with a warrior on the other. Some words were said, but my connection was too faint. I could feel myself sliding out of… wherever I was, but before I had quite left a faint image went through my mind, the same one of that face wrapped in swaddling clothes in my arms.

The real world came back into focus, and I followed through with my punch, sending him into the wall. I scooped up the girl and got ready to run, but I saw that the monster had already disappeared. I cradled her in my arms as she coughed and regained her breath. She shuddered and drew close to me. We sat there for several minutes, the silence ringing in our ears. Eventually, she stood up, and went to fetch the curious device from earlier. We sat next to each other and began to read from it.

Apparently, this Ballas person is one of the Orokin, and oversaw several of their projects. Those sentients, as they are called, turned on the Orokin, and that is how the Old War started. When we finished reading, the girl slowly stood up. “We need to find him,” she said simply, walking to her throne.

I thought this was a terrible idea, but I didn’t want to refuse her wishes. I walked to the lander, and we tracked him down.

 

We found carnage.

 

The Grineer base that he had run to was in shambles. Bodies lay everywhere, not all of them dead. I put the rest of them out of their misery, and let the sight fill my vision. Some of the pieces were some fifty meters apart, with a trail of red linking them. That monster had even less respect for the dead than we did, apparently dragging corpses around until he found a new target. I was glad, for once, that I didn’t have a nose, as I could tell that some of this mess was not recent. I walked further into the base, feeling the child looking through my eyes with horror.

Eventually, we came to the place where he was waiting. I approached hesitantly, and it seems as though he didn’t notice me for a bit, but he turned around and started slashing at me not more than three seconds later. It was nothing like fighting the Grineer or Corpus, it was more like fighting against the Stalker that always watched from the shadows. I desperately tried to stay alive, when she spoke in my mind. “You need to touch him.” I was certainly in no place to argue, but the insanity of this request made me shudder. After what seemed like hours of running and dodging, I found an opening. I jumped over him, and gave his head a hefty whack with my fist.

The second I made contact, that bizarre feeling came over me again. I was in that room, with the blue man, Ballas. He spoke to us without words, threatening yet again to kill the other one in the room, our, no his, son. For some reason I felt a far greater sense of dread, and actually regret from this. Why did I feel regret? And again, like before, I could feel myself sliding from the dream. Before I did, though, I saw more of my own dream.

I was holding a baby, the sweetest and most beautiful thing in the world, my baby. But my body felt like it was on fire, and when I looked down at myself, I was completely covered in bandages, some spots soaked in blood, others soaked in something unidentifiable. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up to see the figure of another person, but the real world beckoned before I could make them out.

I had moved some while inside his head, and a rather large object filled my field of vision. I slid on my face for several meters before regaining my composure, and turned around, ready to fight more if the monster was still threatening. But he simply howled, and when I could see again, was gone.

I sighed and slumped to my knees for a few moments. I thought about my dream, and my heart felt warm, but something in the pit of my stomach wouldn’t go away. I stood up, looked around, and saw some Grineer peeking around various objects and doorways. I’m sure they had never seen a fight between warframes, and they were cautious for once. I walked to my ship, and boarded with little commotion after that.

When I docked, she was waiting for me. She held the curious device in her hand, and told me she had learned how to unlock more of it, and wanted to read it with me. We sat down like before, and began to read. This entry was a most unwelcome one, however. It spoke about the origins of myself and the others, saying how we are actually infested. That infestation twisted our bodies, turning our skin to steel, and giving us enormous power, but robbing us of our minds.

I felt sick. I looked down at my hands, which were shaking uncontrollably. But another hand appeared in each of my own, and the shaking stopped. The child leaned over to hug me and whispered that she still loved me. I couldn’t understand why, though. I was a monster, through and through. And yet, it made me feel calm. Just the feeling of this fragile little girl’s arms around me gave me confidence, but when she let go, the fear noticeably came back. I stayed there on the floor for a while, and the girl went to her living quarters, probably to eat something. Eating itself is such a foreign concept to me, how strange.

An hour or so later, Ordis informed us he had tracked down that monster’s next location from the radio chatter. I got ready to leave, and I felt the girl enter my head.

 

I found… myself.

 

We went to the location, and found a scene much like before, but with somewhat less blood and more oil. We followed the trail, and came across that tall black figure, who seemed to have been waiting for us. Our merry dance resumed, I dodging his attacks as best as I could, suffering a few nicks despite my best efforts. And like before, she commanded that I not hurt him, which frustrated me to no end. I found an opening, and jumped toward him, slapping my hand across his face. He seemed ready for this, though, and grabbed my wrist, but it was too late, the girl and I had already entered his mind.

The room appeared again, but it was horrifying. Infested tendrils were everywhere, and that smug blue man continued to mock us. At the end of his self-righteous speech, he commanded me, I mean him, to kill my, his son. We lunged forward, and I found that I was back in my dream.

The feeling of pain had gone down significantly in my body, and judging by how big the child in my arms was, it had been a couple months since my last dream. I looked at myself, but I was still covered in bandages from head to toe. That’s when I saw my baby’s face. My ray of sunshine, my precious child, had somehow been infested. I finally noticed that the baby was crying in pain from the disease ravaging its body. I could hear faintly a doctor overseeing my conversion expressing shock that the disease had managed to jump to my child, and I heard them mention that euthanasia was the most humane option at this point. I clutched my child to my chest, and felt a tear sliding down one of my cheeks, the other one having already been taken by the disease. I heard my child’s screams. I heard the chatter of the doctors. I heard beeping of medical equipment. I heard the rain outside. All of the sound kept getting louder and louder, until I noticed one of the sounds go quiet. Even though I wasn’t completely formed, my strength was enormous, as the blood dripping from my arms attested.

My own screams started then. They tore through the building, messing up all of the medical equipment in the near area, and almost killing the doctors standing nearby. I felt arms around me then, and I calmed down. It was, I realized, my husband. Like me, he was halfway through conversion, one of his arms noticeably bigger and colder than the other. He told me that it was alright, that my child was in heaven now. But that made me start crying again, and I could feel my power grow inside me. I heard him shout, but my mind had gotten fuzzy. I saw him fall, and dimly realized that my power had compacted the steel of his body, and that he was with my child, now. Then, the disease gave me blessed peace, as it finished working through my mind, letting me forget everything and cease to exist as myself.

I felt my arm nearly get pulled out of its socket, and I was thrown against a wall while the monster made his escape. I stayed there for a very long time, stunned from my memories. Eventually, I think one of my brothers and sisters came to fetch me, or maybe I found my way to extraction, I don’t remember.

I eventually saw that I was back in the lander, and that the girl was sleeping near me. I got up, moved far from her, and sat facing a wall. I knew that she had seen my dream with me, and I didn’t want to look at her, I didn’t want to see how she looked at me. If it wasn’t for this girl, I wouldn’t have remembered. It was then that I felt empathy for that monster. No, not monster, Excalibur. After all, when I thought about it, I was just as much a monster as he was. I think I heard the girl say she was heading out alone to bring him back, but I’m not sure. Several hours later, they had returned. That special Excalibur was walking with her, finally docile. Once I saw that they were safe, I ran to the lander and took off.

I steered randomly, eventually coming across a small Grineer ship. I boarded it, and saw that there was already a battle going on, so I joined in the fray, killing any that came too close to me, trying to forget the events of the day. When there weren’t any foes left in my immediate area, I took stock of the situation, and saw that the Grineer were fighting the infested that had somehow made it on board. Seeing those twisted bodies sent me into shock. I picked one up, and looked at it. I am sure I would have thrown up, if I still had my digestive tract. I looked at it, and realized, I was no different than this infested monstrosity. I was dangerous, and if I continued living, there was the chance that I would hurt that little girl that I so dearly cared for. I’m sure that she sensed something was wrong, and before I could go any further I felt her enter my mind.

The thing about someone entering your mind is that nothing stays private between either of you. Every memory, every feeling, every thought is laid bare between the parties involved. She looked at the current state I was in, and I could tell that she was overwhelmed. I could sense, though, that a third party was involved. He was with us too, and he saw me, and understood. Our interaction probably lasted about ten seconds, but while he was with us, he told me everything. The hatred, the sadness, the fear. Everything that I felt, he had felt too. But he urged me to focus. The girl that found him, the girl that found me, she had restored our humanity. By returning our minds to us, she gave us life. With it, our memories were bound to come back, but they both showed me that they accepted it all. The past was behind us, we needed to focus on the future, and somewhere in his mind I saw the briefest flicker, “protect _our_ child.” It was gone almost before it started, so I don’t think the girl even noticed it.

Then, I felt them leave. I sat for a moment, and I felt calm. The memories still hurt, but I was coming to accept them. After a while, I looked at the corpse I was still holding. I saw how hideous it was, in contrast to my beautiful, shining arms, the upgraded ones that my precious child had given me. I looked at the corpse, and wondered how many families had been torn apart by the infested. It was then that I made a resolution to myself, and to my family, both of my families. I wanted to drive this infestation to extinction, so that it would no longer threaten our system. The Orokin were gone, so no new frames would be made from people, and that was fine by me. I would clean up this mess they left behind, and save those souls that may still be trapped inside those twisted bodies. I looked up, and heard that the fighting was still going on. I plunged headlong into it, annihilating any infested, but trying to leave the Grineer alone. Once we had finished, I helped them incinerate all of the bodies, and purge the ship of the disease. They seemed uncomfortable with thanking me, so I left before they had to.

When I returned, for the first time, there were two figures waiting for me. The child rushed into my arms, tears streaming down her face. Excalibur Umbra followed behind, and gave me a hug, enveloping both the child and I in his arms. I’m only vaguely aware of what happened between them (once someone leaves your mind, their memories are quick to fade), but I knew what had happened between us. Somehow, though this system was cruel and full of hate, we were given a second chance. This child, nestled between us, had given us that chance, and we were going to stand with her to the end.

Eventually a glitchy voice said “Operator, how very- _I’m going to baaaarf-_ touching! Ordis wishes he could give you a hug too.” She giggled at this, and we let her go. Umbra and I looked at each other, and nodded.

 

Many weeks have passed since then. We had wandered the relays, and chatted with some other children, and our precious little girl has made some friends. We found a seldom few other operators with frames like us, but many of them had not had the same experience of returned memories. For those that had, we sympathized, and she seemed particularly close to those ones. For those that hadn’t, we cautioned them, and said they should be sure to be close with their partners, and give the warrior time to themselves if they needed it.

The simple act of watching her play with other children puts the most amazing feeling in my chest, and I can tell that Umbra feels the same way. The three of us will often go out on missions together, with her piloting any of the numerous frames we’ve built. I shared with them my goal to purge the infested from the system, and they both seemed quite supportive of my ambition. It may take a long time, but I don’t care. I have a mission, and I will not stop until I see it fulfilled.

 

I found my future.


	3. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when experiments are forgotten?

We found another.

 

I was relaxing in the orbiter, staring out the window of my child’s living quarters, when she came in with a rather odd look on her face. I beckoned for her to sit next to me, and she did, leaning on my shoulder. We stared out the window for a while, and I let her collect her thoughts.

“I was running a spy mission on Jupiter just now, and as I was looking through the data we looted, I found something mentioned that worries me a little bit. You remember Alad V, right?”

I nodded. Seeing that strange corpus scientist go through his transformations made all of us nervous, and hearing about some of the things he did with his Zanuka project made my skin crawl.

“Well it seems that he has an abandoned lab somewhere in the clouds, and even though some of the data was pretty corrupted, I think there might be some weapons left there that could be extremely dangerous if the other Corpus managed to find them. Are you up for looking into it with us?” I noticed Umbra standing in the doorway.

Again, I nodded. Despite having helped us recently, I didn’t trust Alad. Whenever he leaves something behind, nothing good comes of it. The three of us prepared to depart.

 

We approached the lab, and our brief scans showed that it was indeed empty, but for the usual handful of Corpus proxies. Umbra was carrying the demolition equipment, so I fought off the robots alongside my child’s Volt. There weren’t nearly as many as I felt there should have been, but it seemed as though quite a while had passed since this lab had been resupplied. Several sections of the lab were on emergency power, the red lighting making the place feel even more ominous.

As we got deeper, we found several stashes of weaponry but nothing that seemed particularly out of the ordinary. Umbra tossed a small explosive in each of the rooms, tied to a detonator back on the lander. We eventually found the main power supply room, which merited a somewhat larger bomb.

I felt that something was off, though. We had gone through the majority of the building, but not found anything truly of note, and I could feel the other two getting antsy as well. Room after room went by, with nothing at all that would have resulted in the data that my child would have found. That is, until we finally walked up to the last room. Surprisingly, there was still an active bursa, but it was so low on energy that our Volt didn’t even have to run to take it out.

Honestly, I felt kind of bad for the poor robots here. Who knows how long they had been waiting for their master to return, watching as their batteries slowly died. I suppose it’s good that these ones don’t have minds of their own. I shook my head and moved to open the door.

At first, we were greeted with darkness. The lights in this room seem to have been turned off for some reason. I walked over to a panel nearby and tried to hack the lighting. Eventually, I got some to turn on, and we set to exploring.

The room was incredibly cluttered, and quite large. There were towers of boxes containing various strange looking parts, and some small-scale manufacturing equipment for prototyping. I was fiddling around with some of these machines to see if they were still functional when I heard a crash as some stuff was knocked to the ground, and a screaming went through my head. I felt some transference static as my child panicked, losing focus on her frame. The Volt slumped to the floor. I ran over, Umbra right beside me. We rounded some piece of equipment and found the Volt, deactivated, and turned to see what scared her.

What greeted me will haunt me for a very long time. Hanging in the piece of equipment was a frame, but one that had been mangled beyond recognition. Half of her face was missing, and you could see parts of what might have been her skeleton after the infestation finished turning her to steel. The whole length from her neck to her stomach was pried open, with various parts taken partway out and suspended, with none of the pieces really resembling what they once looked like. One of her arms and one of her legs were intact, but the other were pried completely open, down to the individual muscle fibers, which were suspended on pins, fanning them out. All of this illustrated quite clearly the anatomy of this poor frame. The way that the infested had changed the internal organs, and seeing everything laid bare, it made my skin crawl. I could feel my body trying to fill some primal urge, something akin to vomiting. Having no mouth, or stomach for that matter, it really only manifested in me bending over with my arms around my stomach. I don’t know how Umbra felt about this, but I think it hurt him just as bad.

The screaming in my head had quieted, and it was now just a whimper. I could sense my child lying in shock in the throne. I managed to stand up, and put my hand on Umbra’s arm, more for emotional support than physical. I thought I had recovered, when I noticed something even more disturbing than just the dismembered frame in front of us. I looked closer to confirm my suspicions. Her lungs, one of which was disturbingly larger than the other as well as being outside her chest, were gasping for air, only the one inside her body still able to comply. I recoiled again at this, but kept noticing other signs. The muscle fibers of her arm and leg would twitch once in a while, and her head seemed to have just barely moved in our direction. I grabbed Umbra and pointed, hoping that he would understand. We looked at each other and nodded. I picked up the inactive Volt and ran to put it in the lander and returned as Umbra finished putting the last of the bombs in strategic spots. We confronted the piece of equipment and did our best to uproot the whole thing without jostling its contents. With excruciating care, we brought it to our ship. With three frames and the equipment, it was a very tight fit.

Before we flew away, we turned to watch the fireworks as the bombs went off. It could have been my imagination, but I thought I sensed a reaction from our passenger.

 

When we docked, Umbra and I gently brought the equipment to Helminth’s room. I had to bang on the door for almost a minute before that thing even opened it a crack, but once it did, I think even it was repulsed by what it saw. We placed the equipment before the chair, and I saw the tendrils and claws gently reach out to touch its new patient. I was surprised to see almost no reaction at this. I for one am still disturbed at our ship’s surgeon. Helminth tapped me on the head, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. It tapped me again, and I went to talk to my child. If she could pull it together long enough to communicate with her Nidus, it would help a great deal in working with Helminth. I tapped my head to hers, communicated this, and she numbly complied.

She managed to interpret long enough for us to get our orders, and then she retreated back into her own little world, still in shock. Helminth didn’t have enough limbs to work with to put this poor frame back together, so he needed both Umbra and I to help. Over the next week, we slowly put her back together, unbinding one limb at a time from the equipment. Once she was together enough to be placed in the chair, we settled her in, and took away the empty stand. Umbra and I dragged it back to the lander, and he grabbed an excessively large bomb. We flew down to one of Jupiter’s moons, deposited the bomb and equipment, and left behind a rather sizable crater. In some small part it helped us both.

I needed to let off some steam, so I went out on a mission. I overheard some radio chatter from the Grineer about a recent infestation outbreak, so I headed there to help out. When I got there, I threw myself right into the thick of things, tearing through the creatures with all the vehemence that I could muster. My personal war on the infestation was ongoing, and it felt good to be back at it. I needed more satisfaction than my guns were giving me, so I turned to the ripkas I brought, and reveled in the feelings they produced.

While I was fighting, I tried to think through what had happened. How could someone be so cruel? Not only that, but how had she survived at all? Would she be alright after her repairs were done?

I saw a group of Grineer struggling, so I hurried to help. I annihilated the little ones quickly, then ran to the ancient leading the group. I punched a hole in its chest, then reached inside, exerting both my strength and powers, ripping the creature in half, painting myself black with its blood. If I could have laughed, I probably would have sounded like a maniac. I turned around to see that the Grineer were still cowering in fear, but because of me this time. Even the hyekkas were hiding behind their master, which made me a little sad.

I continued the extermination until not a single infested was moving, using the rest of the fight to clear my mind. After we had torched the corpses, I returned to the ship to get cleaned up.

 

It was another two days before Helminth opened his doors again, but the new frame did not walk out to greet us. While she was put back together, there were rivets all across her body holding things in place, and there were several sections that I could tell Helminth had to generate new material to replace what was missing. He couldn’t do much to save her face, so he just patched it over. Luckily, it has some sense of aesthetics, but that actually served to make the scene even more disturbing, as the two halves of her head looked nothing alike. I glanced over at Umbra, and we walked in to help. We each grabbed an arm, and helped her up, but she put no effort into walking. We carried her, her feet dragging on the floor, and deposited her on the couch in our living quarters belowdecks. She slumped over, and we got to see her back. Her spine was almost entirely exposed, the skin around it having healed in a horrifying way keeping it open to the air.

I had to escape after seeing that. Every part of this poor frame’s existence was like twisting a knife in my gut. I couldn’t believe that anybody could be so cruel, but even more, I couldn’t believe that she was forced to be alive through such extreme experiments. Truthfully, I was surprised that she was _still_ alive.

I stared out the window of the lander, absently petting the kitten my child got while we were in Helminth’s room. It might have been some sort of coping mechanism for her, and I supported it, especially since the little thing was absolutely adorable. Eventually, my child came up, and said she was going to visit some friends. I motioned that I wanted to go out too, more for a breath of fresh air than anything. We flew to a relay, and while she ran off to meet with some others, I wandered for a bit. Eventually, I found myself in the New Loka room, and I sat under one of their trees. I suppose my body language was obvious enough, because the others left me alone. The kitten jumped out of my arms and started swatting at the bugs that were flying around.

It was quite a while before my child was ready to be picked up. She said something about Clem having an amazing poker face, and that he had “cleaned them out.” I wasn’t sure I knew what that meant, I was just glad to hear life in her voice again. I also noticed that a suspicious number of credits had gone missing from our account, but I chalked that up to some sort of shopping spree. It took me a couple minutes to catch the kitten, and I made my way to the lander. My child was just saying goodbye to the others, and I saw her smiling for the first time in a week and a half.

As we flew back to the ship, I thought about asking her to come see the new frame, and as if echoing my thoughts, she asked, “so, the new one got fixed, right?” I nodded. I could see innumerable thoughts cross her mind before she seemed to settle on a decision. “I’m going to go see her.”

I got rather nervous at this. Last time she saw the frame, she went into shock. I was worried that seeing her again would cause my child to regress. But when we got back, I dutifully led her to the new addition to our family. I was surprised to see that she hadn’t even moved since Umbra and I put her on the couch. I felt my child recoil at the sight of her head and spine, but she steeled herself and walked around the couch. She carefully reached out to touch the frame’s face, drawing her fingers along the scars. The frame didn’t even flinch. My child put her head to the new frame, and initiated transference. It was a full two minutes before she returned, during which time the new frame hadn’t even stirred. She looked at me, and with tears starting to form in her eyes she said, “she’s empty.”

I didn’t understand, so I motioned for her to keep talking. “When I fuse with you or Umbra, I can sense you guys, even have conversations with you. You’re solid presences in your own minds. But when I went into her mind, it was like being in a perfectly featureless room. White walls, no corners, light coming from everywhere. It’s not like the frames we’ve crafted, those just feel like puppets. She, she feels like something was there, should be there, but is gone. I almost thought I heard her at the end, but I’m pretty sure it was just my imagination.”

I glanced at the frame, and almost convinced myself she had moved. I motioned for her to come find Umbra with me. She explained to Umbra what she had discovered, and we discussed what we thought we should do. I proposed taking several of the floofs we had gotten from Biz and putting them around her as a way to provide as stark a scenery change from the lab as possible. My child thought that taking her out on missions with her piloting the new frame would help spark something, but Umbra and I rejected the idea, at least for the meantime. Umbra suggested taking her to the relays or Cetus to see some sights, but I mentioned it might be wise to give her a cloak first. It wouldn’t be good to scare everyone else with what some of our enemies are willing to do, even after the worst of it was patched over. Hesitantly, my child agreed to this. Umbra flew off with her to buy a cloak, and I set to arranging the floofs.

I might have gotten a bit carried away. I stepped back and realized that I had put 40 floofs around this poor frame. All different colors, shapes and sizes were present, and I had also put a nice pillow under her head, and a blanket to cover her. She hadn’t reacted to any of this, however. I sat in front of her for a while, trying to think if there was anything else I could do to make her more comfortable. A while later, our kitten found its way to us, and jumped up, settling in front of the new frame, and it started purring. I was shocked to see her visibly move for the first time. She shifted, ever so slightly, to make room for the kitten. I was so excited about this that I ran to meet the others as they returned. We decided to leave her with the kitten for a while, in hopes that it might help.

Umbra and I made some food for our child, more as a way to keep the three of us occupied than anything else. An hour later, we tentatively went down, and were greeted with something wonderful. She was petting the kitten! As I looked, though, I noticed how mechanical the actions were. Regardless, it was progress of some sort. My child was rubbing her eyes, so I led her to her quarters to sleep. I sat, contemplating our guest for a while. How long would it take before she could get up on her own? Was she going to be alright after everything she went through? Even more so than that, who was she?

 

A week went by with little incident. Our guest stayed on the couch, having only barely moved since we put her there. Whenever the kitten would cuddle with her, she would pet it, but that was the most that we saw her move. One day, though, I arrived to find her sitting up. I quietly left to grab the other two and show them. My child walked over and tried talking with her. She mostly rambled about the floofs, talking about how funny some of the animals look, and how cute others were. The kitten jumped up in the frame’s lap, and she started petting it in the same absent way. My child eventually stopped talking, having gotten no real response. She shrugged as she passed us, but I could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. Maybe this frame was a lost cause, and maybe we were all thinking it, but I didn’t want to give up just yet. I sat next to her and started reading a book. I had taken up the pastime after meeting our guest, mostly as another coping mechanism to take my mind off of things.

Some while later, about a book and a half I suppose, I noticed her looking in my direction. I put down the book and looked at her. The other two had gone on a mission, so it was just the two of us. I put my hand on her shoulder, to which she very slowly reacted, mostly just by looking at it. I heard the others coming back, so I got up to tell them about the progress.

 

Things went on like this for another couple weeks, with our guest becoming more active at a glacial pace. She took to standing near the windows, looking out at the scenery wherever we happened to be. Whenever she wasn’t at a window, she curled up on the couch, nearly buried in the floofs. My child decided that it was worth trying transference again, so she dug into the pile and made contact. She stayed bonded with our guest for quite a while, which was surprising to me. When she came back, she told Umbra and I what she had discovered.

Apparently, our guest had recovered enough that she could talk to my child, though the first thing she asked was if she had finally died. My child had explained what had happened, and our guest’s mind seemed to shrink away a bit, but she recovered enough to continue the conversation, though her thoughts were barely coherent. The most important thing that we learned was that her name was Valkyr. My child asked if she wanted to come out with us, either on missions or just to explore, and she said yes.

We gave her the cloak and agreed that our first trip should be to Cetus. The four of us packed into the lander and headed down. Our first visit was to Konzu, as my child had agreed to get lunch with him a while back, but never gotten around to it. They chatted about nothing in particular for a while, us three frames sitting under some trees nearby. Valkyr was still extremely sluggish in every movement, failing to follow the birds as they flew through the sky, so she settled for staring at the insects moving in the grass.

After Konzu and my child had finished eating, he motioned for us to come over. “I don’t recognize this one, are you new?”

“She’s… a long story,” my child answered.

“Why is she wearing a cloak?”

“Ah, well… do you want to show him, Valkyr?”

The frame shrugged just enough to be noticeable, lowering the hood. Even the polite, unflappable Konzu stepped back in shock. She pretended she didn’t care, but I could sense Valkyr deflate a little at this. He recovered quickly, however, and stepped forward to put his hand to the good side of her face. “You’ve gone through something terrible, haven’t you, Surah?” She flinched a little at his touch but allowed him to make contact. A small group of children were playing nearby, and he called out for them to make a crown of flowers. When they brought it, he placed it on Valkyr’s head. He turned to the rest of us. “Kruna metta, take care of this one. You see many terrible things, don’t forget there are beautiful ones too.”

We said our farewells to the old man, and went out to the plains, being sure to avoid any trace of the Grineer. We went to a lake and sat under a tree while Umbra did some fishing. He caught a particularly large eel and threw it at me when I wasn’t looking, giving me quite a shock. He tried running away but forgot that I could drag him to me with my power. You probably could have planted seeds in the furrows his hands left in the ground. My child was laughing gleefully at this exchange, while Valkyr looked on numbly. After grinding Umbra’s face into the ground for a few seconds, I grabbed the eel, knowing Hai-Luk would appreciate the donation.

After dropping off the fish, we rented a boat to go out into the bay. The sun was just setting, giving us a marvelous view. My child was eating some meat on a stick she got from one of the vendors, and Umbra was fishing, _again_ , but this time with a line rather than his spear. As the moon rose, my child fell asleep. The three of us sat together, staring out at the water. To my surprise, Valkyr gently curled around the sleeping figure, the good side of her face on the child’s shoulder. This was the first sort of personality, let alone affection that she had shown any of us. I tapped Umbra and pointed, and could tell that he was just as excited as I was. We left them alone, Umbra quietly reeling in his line to put away. I leaned against him, staring up at Lua, until the sun started to rise. We rowed back to Cetus, arriving just as my child woke up.

She performed transference with the Valkyr for just a moment after she realized she was there. My child reported later what she heard. Valkyr was thinking “nice people” on repeat.

 

Another week went by, with Valkyr’s recovery getting ever faster. She now moved with some purpose, rather than aimlessly wandering the ship. She showed some interest in books, but only the ones with pictures as the main focus. I suspect that she doesn’t know how to read Ostron. I’ll have to teach her later. One of her favorite pastimes was playing with our resident kitten. The creature would scamper through the ship following the frame, Valkyr often holding a bunch of condroc feathers or some other amusing toy. I was so glad to see that she was doing better. Two months ago, I wasn’t sure that we would ever get this far. Part of me was scared that something was bound to go wrong.

 

I thought it about time to see if she was ready to go back into the field. I brought her to the simulacrum, somehow managing to keep Simaris’ eyes off her, and gave her one of my favorite cestra that I had gotten from Glast. I spawned in a spherical target for each of us and shot a quick spray of bullets into mine. The alarming sound scared her, and she dropped to the ground, her head clutched in her hands. I dropped the gun and ran over to her, putting my arms around her shoulders. She struggled weakly, and I cursed the fact that I couldn’t speak. I pulled up a terminal in the simulation, using a text-to-speech function to talk to her. I told her that she was perfectly safe here, that I was in control of everything. I mentioned that I wanted to see if she would be able to go on missions with us, and that this was a way to test her, saying that we didn’t have to go through with it. She shook her head, and hesitantly picked up the gun that she had dropped. She pointed it at the target, pulling the trigger, and was subsequently thrown off balance by the spray of bullets. I was pleased to see that at least some had landed, though, turning the orb red.

I could see her whole body shaking from both the mental and physical stress of the process. I said that it was enough and pulled us out of the simulation. When we returned to the ship, she retreated to the couch. I left her alone, scared that I had pushed back her recovery by weeks. The other two were on another mission and wouldn’t be back for some time. I sat in my child’s living quarters, reading. Several hours later, I heard gentle footsteps approach me, pause, then walk away again. I set down the book, putting my head in my hands. If there was any indication that I had messed up, it was this. She couldn’t even bear to face me any more. I got up to go wreck a Grineer ship to let off some steam, but noticed a piece of metal on the floor with markings on it. Etched into the surface, in sloppy Orokin letters, was the word “determined.”


	4. Revenge

Valkyr has been making a lot of progress. Every day she shows more personality, and I’ve been slowly getting her ready for combat again in the simulacrum. It took a week before she stopped shaking after every session, and another couple days to recover from killing her first thing in the simulation, even though it was just an infested charger. She either has a very kind soul or is still scared of everything. It’s possible both are true. I don’t know if she’s quite ready for the field, but we decided it would be worth a try soon. She agreed to come with us, but I’m going to make sure that she stays as far from the fray as possible.

Something that worries me is that I haven’t seen her use any abilities at all. I have no idea what her skillset is, and I hope she shows me soon, otherwise I won’t be comfortable giving her the go ahead even for missions with just the two of us. I decided that I would ask around the relays to see if anyone had ever heard of a Valkyr frame before. I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and headed out.

The first relay I visited didn’t give me anything useful. The second, I heard some murmurs about having seen one before, but that they were exceptionally rare. The third relay I asked at, the very first Tenno I asked said, “well yeah I’ve seen one. My Valkyr’s right over there,” the child pointing at the first shop.

I was amazed at what I saw. A beautiful, powerful warrior, with long, gleaming claws, carrying herself with grace and surety that insinuated she knew how to kill me in any number of ways. I couldn’t even believe that she was the same model as our Valkyr, there were almost no similarities I could see. I quickly scribbled on my paper “can I ask you some questions?” The Tenno nodded.

 

I learned several things from them, all of which left me a bit depressed. The Valkyr units were a specialized set of frames that focused on close combat, and very few of them were made. Even their blueprints were so uncommon as to be impossible to find purposefully. He told me that when they focused, they became so fast on their feet that it was literally impossible to land a blow on them, no matter how chaotic the battlefield was. This chews through their Tenno’s energy reserves like mad, though, so it doesn’t last forever. Only long enough for them to completely wipe the field.

I weighed this in contrast to our Valkyr. Graceful was not a word I ever expected to use to describe her, nor light on her feet. Despite doing its best, Helminth couldn’t get rid of her limp, and sometimes I can tell that certain movements hurt her. I don’t know if she’ll ever heal to 100% again. I also weighed their appearances in my mind. The Valkyr I met was beautiful, but ours was painful to look upon. I decided to keep what I had learned to myself and was glad that the Valkyr units were so rare, as I don’t know what it would do to her to see what she is supposed to be.

I started noticing little things about her after that. When she would stare out a window, it would sometimes be the case that she wasn’t staring at the stars. I saw her tracing the scars and rivets on her front, and once, when she thought she was alone, I saw her covering the bad side of her face. The other half didn’t look at all like the one I had met, but of course this was one of the secrets I needed to keep. After seeing that, though, I had a little idea. I would have to ask my child about it later.

She truly loves our kitten, though. Sometimes I feel like playing with the little critter is the one thing that gives her joy in our orbiter.

 

The day came when we decided to take her on her first mission. It was a simple defense mission, in a remote area of Mars. My child and Umbra were right next to the target, while I holed up with a sniper in a building nearby, Valkyr holding one of my cestra watching the door. The mission went without incident until a minute before we extracted, when I heard an alarming spray of bullets from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin, but I think Valkyr was even worse off than I was. A ballista was laying on the ground, the majority of her right shoulder and head missing from where Valkyr was aiming. I suppose the ballista was looking for a good sniping spot like me. I saw Valkyr shaking from the shock and her first kill, so I walked over to give her a hug. By the time Ordis brought us the lander, she had calmed down.

We celebrated a little that night for her first successful mission. After she retreated to her floof mountain, I tapped my child. I had written her a note, describing how I thought it best if we avoid Corpus missions with Valkyr. She had a hard enough time dealing with missions at all, and I was worried that she may regress if she was reminded of the lab. My child agreed, then went to bed. I stared out at the stars for a while, and felt so small, much like when I had first woken up. For some reason, the more progress Valkyr made, the more scared I was that something was going to go wrong.

 

I think my fears were unfounded, though. She has been making remarkable strides, and I’ve equipped her with more weapons to see what she likes. For now, it seems she prefers snipers, as her limp makes fighting in the thick of things a little difficult. Not only that, I still haven’t seen her use any abilities. I don’t know what’s holding her back, but I won’t pressure her. I still don’t want her to go on solo, or even duo missions yet, so for now it’s at least two of us that go with her on missions. As per my recommendation, we are avoiding Corpus sites, and sticking with Grineer or infested missions. Her aim is getting better, and she doesn’t take as long to recover after we extract. In fact, I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t need to recover at all any more.

 

We took another vacation to Cetus, paying a visit to our friends while we were there. Valkyr wore her cloak again, keeping her hood up. When we found Konzu, he remembered her immediately. “Swazdo-lah, Surah! You’re looking so much better today!” Valkyr puffed out her chest slightly at this. She knew how much progress she had made and was proud of herself. We were all proud of her. Konzu started telling us some stories, and we all listened, my child laughing at his jokes now and again. Eventually, he shooed us away, claiming he had work to do.

We went out to the plains to visit the same lake as last time. Valkyr wanted to try fishing, so Umbra showed her the basics, while I nervously watched my child climb a tree. I know she would be fine, but seeing her so high up still scared me. I sat down under the tree, and started reading a book.

A couple chapters later, the world went dark. I stood up in surprise, tearing at my face to get whatever it was off. A small shower of blood later, and I saw that it was a massive mawfish that had bitten my head. I looked up and saw Umbra and Valkyr running away. I targeted Umbra first, yanking him to me with my power. I magnetized the ground under him, pinning him there for a few minutes as punishment, then turned to chase Valkyr. I let her get a few seconds further, then tackled her to the ground, sitting on her chest and giving her my best stern look. I felt that she was shaking, and got worried, until I heard something. She was laughing, just barely loud enough to hear.

This was amazing to me. Very few frames are able to make noises, but apparently she was one of them. And for her to be able to laugh was incredible. Let alone the fact that she was laughing! I got up and helped her to her feet, giving her a hug. We walked back to the others, and I gently kicked Umbra in the head, and he did his best menacing growl. Valkyr giggled a little more at this. I looked at the remains of the fish they latched on me, and tossed it into the lake. It was mangled enough that even the hungriest family Hai-Luk could find would lose their appetite.

 

I’m so proud of Valkyr. She brings so much life to the orbiter, and I no longer worry about her in missions. My child went off to visit some friends, and while she was gone, us three frames decided to go off on a mission. We heard some radio chatter of a Grineer galleon fighting the infested, so we headed out to help. Umbra and I hacked through the infested while Valkyr followed behind with the ignis, torching the corpses. It took a while to clear the ship.

After we had finished, Valkyr walked up to one of the hyekka masters, and made petting motions. I don’t know if this was a particularly nice master or what, but they allowed her to pet the hyekka. I could tell she loved it, and I’m sure they loved the attention. A couple minutes later, I tapped her shoulder, letting her know we needed to head out.

On our way to our extraction point, I heard a strange noise. I think other Grineer noticed it too, because several of them started coming towards the point it emanated from. A second later, a small explosion rocked the area as a Corpus raiding party entered the ship. My blood ran cold, and I was too slow to react at what happened next. From the middle of the party, an isolator bursa ran out, and sent its hook to the nearest target. Unfortunately, that was Valkyr.

I started to run after her, but had to dodge as the other troops started shooting. I pulled out my dual cestra and started mowing through their ranks, watching behind them as the isolator bursa stunned Valkyr over and over, dragging her further away. I finally broke through their lines, and was both scared for her, as well as angry at the Corpus. Both of these fueled my power, and I yanked the bursa away from her. I pinned it to the ground, pumping it full of plasma. I think I went a little overboard, though, as Umbra had to grab my wrist before I realized it wasn’t moving. I turned to make sure Valkyr was ok, and saw that she decidedly was not. She was curled up on the ground, hands over her head, shaking violently. On top of this, she was alternating between screaming and crying. I only had enough time to think about how much progress we lost before my body coursed with electricity, and I started getting dragged away. I saw Umbra suffering the same, and belatedly realized that there were two more isolators. What kind of raiding party was this?

Umbra and I were struggling. Neither one of us could get free of the bursas long enough to retaliate, and Valkyr was effectively out of commission for the foreseeable future, if not longer. The Grineer were pinned down, having not had enough time to recover from the infestation. I wondered if this was how it was going to end. I cast my mind out to find my child, desperate for any help. I felt her realize the situation, and she asked her friend if she could use their throne. Moments later, I felt her present in my mind, and a short time after that, she had teleported to us. She ran from the bursas, too weak to challenge them, but she took out several of the other Corpus nearby and rushed to Valkyr. Just before she reached the trembling figure, a blinding light shot through the hallway, and my child collapsed, a not insignificant chunk of her side missing. Luckily, the wound had cauterized from the laser. She dropped right in front of Valkyr, who noticed her fall.

I had to piece together what happened next from the others, as the bursa knocked me out entirely. Valkyr saw my child fall, and apparently something in her snapped. She let out the most incredible warcry that anyone present had ever heard and staggered to her feet. She ran at the bursas, and started tearing at them with her bare hands, which had some sort of energy coalescing around them, looking like claws. Every moment she tore at them, she got faster and stronger, to the point where she ripped the riot shields of the second bursa clean off. After no trace of the two isolators was left, she turned her attention to the Corpus. Most of them realized the threat and started firing at her. Somehow, though, the bullets didn’t affect her. She wasn’t dodging them, like the other Valkyr units did. From what I could gather, it was like the rage she was channeling was physically stopping anything from hurting her if it made contact. The path of destruction she carved was not elegant. She fought more like an animal than a warrior, shredding the Corpus with her claws, constantly screaming that feral scream.

When the hallway was clear of enemies, Valkyr collapsed. Umbra had recovered by then and had to drag all three of us back to the ship.

 

My first thoughts on waking up were about Valkyr. I looked up from where I was laying and saw her mountain of floofs. I dug into it, and saw her curled up, not moving. She didn’t even react at my presence. My blood ran cold, and I had to leave the room. When I got to the main floor of the orbiter, my legs gave out. I punched the ground with a fist, weakly at first, then harder. We were back to square one with her. I slammed the ground with both hands, and Ordis squawked at me to stop. I saw Umbra huddled in a corner. He was probably worse off than I was, emotionally, as he didn’t know if any of the three of us would wake up again. I could sense my child getting medical aid from Helminth, which was not a fun process for her. I crawled over to Umbra and sat with my back to his. We stayed like that until Helminth opened his doors. My child walked to her throne, and I could see tears falling from her eyes.

 

Three days later, Valkyr still hadn’t moved.

 

Umbra, my child and I went to the derelict and raised hell. We destroyed so many of the infested that the newest Lephantis manifestation attacked us. We were so pissed that he didn’t stand a chance. Before we left, we spread oil through a huge number of the rooms, and set it ablaze. I’m sure it was a solid week before that fire went out.

When we returned, I checked on Valkyr again. To my amazement, she was curled around the cat, petting it once in a while. She lifted her head as I walked in, but turned her face away from me as I got closer. I took the cue and left.

 

Another few days later, I peeked in and saw her halfheartedly playing with the cat using the condroc feathers.

 

The next day, she was gone.

 

We panicked at this. She somehow slipped away while we were on a long mission. We frantically searched the ship, but she was nowhere to be found. The only thing we discovered was a small piece of paper with the word “sorry” sloppily written on it. My child asked Ordis where she was, but he was unusually silent. She threatened to purge him from the systems if he didn’t talk. He freaked out at that, and his glitched voice let slip that she was in Cetus. I ran to the lander, the others hot on my heels.

My child marched up to Konzu and demanded to know where Valkyr was. He put his hands on her shoulders, telling her to calm down. I could tell part of her wanted to punch him in the face, but even on her worst day, well I suppose this qualified, she would never do that. She took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes. When she opened them, Konzu pointed to a nearby field of flowers.

We hesitantly walked over, and saw her, huddled in her cloak. She shrank back as we approached but didn’t run. My child leaned over, initiating transference. I will never know what happened between those two, but I imagine it was the most difficult conversation either of them had ever been through. Several minutes later, my child returned, and Valkyr stood. We boarded the lander and went home.

 

She hadn’t regressed nearly as far as we had feared, but the bursas brought the memories of what Alad V did to her back into her mind. She acted like nothing was wrong when we were looking, but once in a while I caught her shivering.

 

I swear I’ll kill him.

 

I spent the next few weeks tracking him down. He’s a frighteningly slippery character, but I was determined to corner him. Maybe if I brought his head to her on a platter, she would feel better.

 

The second I located him, I ran to the lander and took off, not telling Umbra or my child what I was doing. He was on a small ship, presumably flying to a new lab on Pluto. I flew as fast as our little Liset could go, and contemplated ramming the ship, but I didn’t want to have to buy a new lander. Instead, I deployed my archwing, and started taking out the systems of the ship. I destroyed their communications array, and before they could react, I blew out their engines. I broke every single escape pod, and shattered all of the windows, forcing the crew to go further inside. After the ship was completely helpless, I made my way inside. I stalked through every room, killing every person and destroying their proxies.

I could almost smell him hiding in the ship. I made sure to eliminate every other person before finding him, hoping it was scaring him more by the second. Amusingly, he tried to send a Zanuka unit after me, but I threw it against the wall with such force it kept going through the other walls and into the void of space. Once nothing left moved, I stalked towards him. Before I opened the door, though, I felt a presence behind me. I whirled around, almost opening fire before I recognized the cloak. She stepped towards me and pointed at the door. I nodded. I noticed that energy was swirling around her hands again, but that it was different this time. Whereas last time, her rage felt animalistic, this was the coldest, most single-minded hatred that had likely ever existed.

She opened the door, and another Zanuka unit flew at her. She almost casually swung her hand, bisecting the creature, each half flying past her to either side. Alad V was in the middle of the room, and when he saw us he started running for one of the other doors. Valkyr tossed a ripline at him, catching him around the throat, reeling him in oh so slowly. He was panicking, making strained noises. She grabbed some shards of metal from the destroyed Zanuka, driving one through each of his limbs to keep him in place. Then, she straddled his stomach, and traced his face with a claw. When it reached his chest, she plunged it in, with almost no resistance. I saw his eyes bulge with the pain, but the ripline around his throat prevented him from screaming. She slowly, carefully started prying him open, much as he had done to her. Once she had removed one of his lungs with surgical precision, I put my hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me, then down at her work, and backed away. The ripline fell from his throat, and just as he was starting to scream, I slammed his head against the ground, knocking him out. The infestation had done some strange things to him, making him sturdier. He was definitely still alive.

I walked over to Valkyr and put my arms around her. She returned the hug after a moment and started crying. Her whole body shook with the force of her sobs. I held her until she went quiet. After she stopped, I pulled away and took her face in my hands, putting my forehead to hers. Huh, was she always taller than me? She put one hand over mine and we stood there like that for another couple minutes.

I pulled away for real this time, pointing to the unconscious figure. Valkyr made a dismissive gesture. I held out my hand to her, and she took it. We walked together back to the landers. I noticed that she followed me in the small pod my child used when she went to visit friends. That explained why it took her so long to arrive. I contacted Ordis, telling him to fly the pod back. Valkyr and I sat in the lander, side by side.

 

The others didn’t ask us right away what happened. I walked with Valkyr to her floof mountain, and watched her burrow in. After that I updated the others. I asked my child to grab her Nidus for a second and follow me to Helminth’s room. I had her ask some questions, then gave the thing a crude blueprint that I had drawn up.

 

When Valkyr came out from her mountain again, I presented her with the gift. She looked at it, and I motioned what it was. She took it gingerly from me, and held it to her chest, making her way to Helminth. An hour later, she emerged, and went straight to the mirror in my child’s room. She ran her fingers over her new face. Stylized kavat ears to either side, with a sly twist to the lips. She stared at herself for several minutes before turning to give me a hug. Somehow, I knew that after this, everything was going to be ok.

 

We took a trip to a relay, all four of us together. My child disappeared again to visit with Clem and Darvo, though I took away her credits first. Umbra had described what happened last time it happened. He was somewhere looking for a mechanic, I think. Our mod station needed a little tune up.

Valkyr and I just wandered for a bit. When we rounded the corner, though, I saw a familiar figure. She turned towards us, and her gaze settled on Valkyr, the frame by me meeting the stare. Somehow, they both knew. They stepped towards each other, drawing into an embrace. I noticed that our Valkyr was quite a bit shorter than the other one. She drew back, and ran her fingers over our Valkyr’s new face, nodding her head in approval. Her gaze settled on the scars, though, and ours shrank under the gaze, drawing her cloak around her. The other grabbed her wrist, beckoning her Tenno to come translate. She said that she was proud of our Valkyr, for having survived so much. She also mentioned something about the runt making the rest of them look good having shown how durable they truly were. After some more chatter, she looked at her face, and said that our Valkyr’s name should be Bastet. She cupped one of Bastet’s cheeks in her hand, and Bastet nodded. I glanced at the Tenno, noticing that he was barely awake on his feet. I pointed at him, and the Valkyr laughed with her own voice, much like ours had that one time. Hopefully Bastet would laugh again. The Valkyr scooped up the child, and marched off, waving her goodbye. It amused me to see another frame taking care of her child.

Bastet took my notepad and wrote, “forgot they were pretty.” I nodded, and we headed back to find the others.


	5. Infested Impedance, or Strange Bedfellows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to start cleaning up the infested mess across the system.

It has been several months since I’ve seen the others. After confirming that Bastet was alright, I left to take on my personal crusade. It might ultimately be a futile effort, but perhaps figuring out every single creative way to kill an infested qualifies as a form of training. If nothing else, my abilities have been getting far stronger.

I started small with my missions, working around the more populated planets and making sure they were completely clean. Of course, since population means other Tenno, there wasn’t much for me to do. After a couple days contemplating my next target, I decided to start cleansing the derelicts that floated around the system. Ignoring just how many there were, I chose randomly, and started killing.

Sometimes, I would enter guns blazing, mowing down any of the monstrosities that dared face me. Other times, I would practice my stealth, which is very difficult with them given their apparent hive-mind. In time, I could wipe a whole ship without a single one seeing me. Of course, that was time consuming, so I started honing my abilities. The sounds they made when I crushed their bones or whatever were incredible. Magnetizing an entire room of them, nailing them in place, and slowly finishing every single one off individually was exquisite. I even developed a fun type of melee with my abilities. By creating absurdly powerful magnetic storms around my fists, I could either cause massive internal damage by virtue of displacing their guts, or I could rend metal after a few good hits. Putting them both together, now that was fun.

And of course, to finish cleansing the ships, I torched every single one. I didn’t leave until the flames went out, and my jerry-rigged scanners told me there were no signs of spores left over. It wouldn’t do to leave any trace of the disease, no matter how small.

 

I accidentally stumbled upon a tiny derelict ship, barely a few rooms, and stopped by to cleanse it. Curiously, when I smashed my way in, the infested inside ran _away_ from me. I only had a fleeting moment of curiosity as to why this was before the thrill of the hunt overtook me. My prey was running, and that just wouldn’t do! I snagged one with my power, and dragged it to me, and nailed it down with the boltor I had brought this time. I stalked through the ship, killing every infested that I saw. When I entered the last room, I saw a cluster of leapers huddled against the far wall, arms over their heads. It almost looked like they were trembling in fear. _Hah, good. Pray to the Void that you get sent somewhere nice after I finish you._

 

The next several ships were much the same as normal. Horde charges me, I end them. But again, I found a smaller derelict, and again the inhabitants ran away. I still cleansed the ship, but it gave me some pause. Were there different strains of the infested? After all, we warframes are infested bodies, so why wouldn’t there be “tame” instances of the infested?

I shoved this thought out of my mind. _Nonsense, they’re hideous, and we’re beautiful. There’s no way they could still have their minds._

 

And yet, it happened a third time. I found a smallish ship, and broke my way in. As soon as one of the monsters noticed me, it started running. I followed at a leisurely pace but was taken aback when a voice came over speakers scattered through the ship. “ _Please go away, we don’t want to fight. We just want to be left in peace!_ ”

Left in peace? Could the infested have figured out how to use the speakers to talk? Perhaps it was a trap. Maybe by seeming peaceful, visitors would get complacent, and fall prey to them. I kept my guard up, quietly making my way through the ship. I caught sight of more infested and followed them. They were filing into a large room it seemed. When the last one had gone in, the doors ground closed. _Hah, like that could stop me._ I summoned my storm fists, wandering to the door. I wound up, added a burst of energy, and smacked the door as hard as I could. Credit where it’s due, the Orokin were good at building doors. Regardless, I left a sizeable dent.

Again, that voice came over the speakers. “ _Please, don’t kill us, we just want to live!_ ”

At this point I got pissed. _Shut! Up! You! Worthless! Trash!_ Every thought was punctuated with a fist to the door. On the seventh strike, I tore my way through. What I saw, though, gave me pause. The room itself was incredible. There were metal growths throughout the whole cavernous room, making it feel like a forest. Along the walls were strange murals, one of which had a particular beam of light on it, though I have absolutely no idea what that mural could possibly be depicting. I shook my head to focus, setting the décor aside. Looking at my prey, however, didn’t make the situation any less strange. The majority of the monstrosities were huddled in the middle of the room, and in front of them stood two ancient healers, flanked by a small contingent of mutalist machines. They had their arms spread as if they were trying to defend the ones hiding behind them.

One of the ospreys had a speaker in it, and that voice sounded again. “ _Please, leave us alone! We just want to live our lives!_ ”

 _Okay, what the fuck._ I lowered my fists, letting the magnetic storms dissipate. The healers visibly relaxed at that, and the huddle stopped trembling quite as much. I took out a small projector, and had it display the words **explain yourselves** on the floor.

The healers looked down at it, then at each other, and back to me. “ _Uh, sorry, but we can’t read that. Could you translate it into Corpus for us?_ ”

A swell of rage stirred in me, but I forced it down. For now, it seemed like they were cooperating, somehow. I fiddled with the projector to translate it.

“ _Ah, well that’s a long story. You see, we are one of the strains of infested that are nonviolent. We still change anyone that gets too close to us, however, so we try to tell anybody that boards to stay away. Though, we haven’t actually had visitors in probably a century._ ”

My mind reeled. _Peaceful_ infested? That didn’t make any sense! They were supposed to be mindless killing machines, intent on destroying all life, not this cowardly bunch of… artists? I still have no idea what that mural is supposed to be. I slammed my fist against the door, making the hole I came in bigger. It wasn’t supposed to be like this!

**How do I know I can trust you?**

“ _Ah, well, I don’t know. You could watch us as we live, and see for yourself, but I don’t know if the others will let go of their fear of you quite so quickly._ ”

I thought for a bit, then typed my response. **I shall pretend to go, but I will return to watch from the shadows.** Then I turned and ran back to my ship.

 

After getting to safety, I looked at my hands to see they were trembling. What was that? Could it really be true that there were benign forms of the infestation in the system? I knew that Helminth was harmless, but it was an Orokin production that made us warframes, so it didn’t count. I thought for quite a while, with no real progress. Eventually, I geared back up and boarded the ship, quietly this time.

From the shadows, I watched them. Many were still in that odd room, and one of the ancient healers was looking at the hole I made in the door. It seemed like it was spreading something on the outward edges, but I was too far away to tell for sure. Some of them, however, started going back to other parts of the ship. I followed a leaper, and it led me to an obstacle course that could rival even the most intense ones from the dojos I had visited. My mental jaw dropped as the misshapen thing trundled up to the start of the course, and started performing the most graceful acrobatics, flying through the course with stunning speed. At one point it tripped, falling a painful fifteen meters back to the ground. After flopping for a bit, it got back up, and waddled, noticeably slower, back to the healers. As I watched, the ancient not attending the door very gently ran its limbs over the wounded leaper, fixing it. After getting a pat on what was probably its head, the leaper turned to go back to the obstacle course. I shook my head in amazement. Could they really be… good?

I steeled myself and followed a charger next. It wandered to a large circular room that was completely empty, though it had clear signs of wear from feet going over it through the ages. It walked to one end of the room, pawed at the ground, and began to run. It accelerated faster and faster, until it stopped running on the ground and started travelling on the walls. Round and round, faster and faster, until it took a mighty leap, and skidded across the floor and through one of the hallways.

It returned with a second charger, and they mock fought for a while, charging at each other, hitting with a most sickening noise, or getting into the funniest looking slap fights with their awkward front paws. After a while, they rolled on their backs, probably doing the infested equivalent of panting.

 

I had seen enough and returned to the odd room where the ancient healers hung out. I knocked on the doorframe to get their attention, pulling out my projector. **Alright, I believe you. But what do you two do for fun?**

“ _Ah, well I work on my machines, trying to make new ones out of what little I have access to on the ship. I was an engineer before I turned, after all._ ” Wait, before it turned? The infested aren’t supposed to remember anything. I mean, Umbra and I remember some stuff, but we’re _warframes_ , the pinnacle of infested research. “ _And she-_ ” wait, she? “ _-took on the old one’s work here in the garden._ ” What?

**Who is the old one, and what was his work?**

“ _The old one created everything in this garden, by pushing the materials with a specific strain of infestation. As for who, come this way_.” The healer led me through the tangled forest of what they apparently called the garden, until we reached the center. Up above us floated an Orokin relic that provided light to the room, surrounded by strange looking metal leaves. But below that sat an enormous throne, in which sat the largest ancient healer I had ever seen. As I looked at it, however, I saw that it seemed to be fused to the throne. Its feet were dug into the floor, what appeared like roots winding from it further into the ship. As I approached, some of its many eyes opened, the weight of age easily apparent in the motion. I stood in awe at the creature, and nearly fell over when it began to speak in a very quiet voice. It had been a long time since I had heard that tongue, but I understood Orokin just as well as when I fought for them, eons ago.

“Ah, a visitor.” The unhurried ancient said. “It’s been so long since we’ve seen a new face around here. Ah, but you smell strange. Almost like us, I dare say.” A few more of its eyes opened, though I could tell some of them were sightless. “I recognize your kind. I only ever encountered you once before I turned, I think. Shining warriors, built to repel the sentients. Alas, I fell victim to the darker past before the Sentient War ended. Do tell me, child, has the War ended yet?”

I stood, dumbstruck, and only started to move when I noticed the smaller healers turn toward me. I fiddled with the projector a bit. **Yes, old one, the War is over. We repelled the sentients.** I decided to withhold the fact that they were seemingly coming back, with other, scarier rumors floating around. I knew that Bastet and I should have killed Alad V when we had the chance.

The littler healers probably read for the old one, given the awkward angle I had to hold the projector at. It shifted a little, closing its many eyes again. “That is good to hear, I always worried our little paradise would be annihilated one day.” My gut twisted a little when it said that. After all, that was exactly what I was going to do when I first arrived.

“I’m feeling so very tired, I think I need to sleep,” the old one said, trailing off.

I looked at the other two, and through some unsaid agreement, we wandered back to the edge of the garden. I slid down against the wall, putting my head in my hands. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a very small charger with strange looking machinery integrated into it walk up to the “engineer” healer. It bent down and made a few tweaks to the machinery laced through the charger’s body, and the little thing bounded off again. To the other side, I saw the “gardener” healer settle down a respectful distance away, waiting for me to do something, I suppose.

I got up, giving them one last message. **I’m leaving for now, but I might be back.** I walked to my ship, feeling the watchful eyes of the infested.

 

After I put a tracker on the derelict, I lay down and meditated, reaching out for the others. Our consciousnesses connected, and I updated them on what I had found. They were glad to hear from me, as it had been a long time since I had last contacted them, but they didn’t seem to believe my claims. I urged them to come see for themselves, warning them that they were a little skittish.

 

When they finally got to me, all four of us entered the derelict. A leaper saw us coming, and started to run away, but paused and looked back at me. It cautiously approached, so I held out my hands to show they were empty. After staring a bit, it glanced at the others and ran down the hall. Moments later, I heard that voice come over the speakers again. “ _Have you returned already? We really weren’t sure you’d come back. Please come to the garden._ ’

The others flinched at the voice, but I assured them it was ok, and showed them the way. We entered the garden through the hole I made on my first trip, though I could swear the edges looked just a bit duller, as there was a tinge of infested matter around the opening. The two healers were waiting for us, along with probably half of the rest of the crew. My child, bless her heart, walked right up to them and offered her hand. They flinched back a bit, giving her a questioning look.

“I’ll be fine, I promise.” Tentatively, the engineer reached forwards to shake, followed by the gardener.

“ _You are very brave to touch us, after all, we turn whoever we touch into one of us._ ”

“Don’t worry, this is just a projection. My body is still on the ship.” The healers relaxed upon hearing this.

They took the four of us on a tour of the ship and had some of the “little ones” demonstrate what they did for fun. I could tell that the others were just as shocked as I had been the first time, though somehow, Bastet was the first to shake it off. She saw the runners and leapers doing the obstacle courses, and she strode over to join them. She took off, seemingly doing alright for the most part. But one of her feet slipped, and she went plummeting to the ground. To her credit, she almost landed on her feet. A couple of the infested ran over to check if she was ok as she shakily got to her feet. One of them waved at her, pointing up at the course where she fell, and made some odd motions. Bastet nodded, and went back to the starting line, gearing up to go again.

I noticed that at some point, Umbra had slinked off to challenge the chargers, and I peeked in to see him wrestling with them. Remarkably, he was actually losing more often than not, making me belatedly realize just how ridiculously strong these infested were. Good thing they were nice, I guess.

The healers took my child to visit the old one, and I climbed up one of the “trees” to explore. I saw a crawler messing with some of the metal at the top, and as I watched, it clicked for me. The thick infested matter was how they built the garden! Somehow, it was able to move metal from place to place, and the crawlers and the ancients had figured out how to turn that into art. I’ll be honest, I was amazed. These infested kept throwing me through loop after loop, and somehow, I found that my burning hatred for the infested had mellowed considerably.

I reached up and poked a bit at what the crawler was working on, but it gently swatted my hand away, waggling its finger at me. I stopped and watched as it resumed its work.

 

After our little field trip had ended, we met in my child’s living quarters.

“They seem really nice!” she said.

 _They’re really acrobatic! It was fun to play with them!_ Bastet added.

“I wonder if they get bored there. I mean, they’ve been isolated for so long!”

_Maybe we should bring them some of the movies you have, see if they like them!_

_I’m wondering how helpful they’d be as combat allies,_ Umbra mused. We all stared at him. _What? They’re really strong, and they can think clearly, unlike other infested. I suppose the only issue would be making them noncontagious…_

“I could talk to Helminth, see if it has any thoughts.”

_Good idea._

_When can we go play with them next?_

“I’d say pretty soon, Bastet. Just need to get some things in order first.”

 

After some preparations, we visited again. The little ones loved watching the movies we brought, and the healers commented on how nostalgic it was to sit back and watch something. We told them about Helminth and asked them if they’d like to try becoming noncontagious. After some translation, we discovered the little ones were asking if that meant they could make more friends. My child told them that it definitely did. They all clamored to volunteer, but the healers shushed them, and looked at each other, before the engineer stepped forward. “ _I’ll volunteer to be the first trial._ ”

We had to mute Ordis’ screeching.

A day later, the doors to Helminth’s room opened, and the engineer walked out, no worse for wear. Helminth assured us that the engineer was definitely not contagious any more, and that it had streamlined the process. We kept the door to my child’s room firmly shut while we cleansed the whole assembly, and then bleached the ship just to be safe. The two healers took what they learned from Helminth and performed a procedure on the old one, just to be safe.

We hung out on that derelict for quite a while, showing the infested what changes had gone through the system since they were cut off from it. While the little ones played or watched movies, we whispered to the ancients about the sentients returning, and the stirrings of what could become a new war. They sighed, not pleased about the prospect. It was then that Umbra asked them to fight with us.

“He says, please help us, we’ll need everyone we can get. You are all really strong, and we could equip you to make you more effective,” my child conveyed.

“ _To fight again… we don’t know. We have been at peace here for so long…_ ”

“He says that if we lose against the sentients this time, that they’ll come for you too.”

“ _Please let us think and talk it over with the little ones. It also may be wise to discuss with the old one, despite how close he is to eternal rest._ ”

“We can leave a communicator here, that way you can call us with your answer, or just tell us a shopping list if you want something.” We all saw the engineer glance at its mutalist machines. “Yes, we can get you more MOAs if you want.” I swear the engineer blushed.

“ _Very well. Thank you for the kindness you have shown to us._ ”

“No problem!”

“ _I suppose my first request would be for parts to better help this one._ ” It patted the odd little mechanical charger on the back.

After describing what it needed, we parted ways, though a couple of the little ones came with us, wanting to see the system. We made some room for them belowdecks, though that involved pushing Bastet’s floof mountain further towards a wall. They are actually very polite house guests, and are very gentle with my child. I must say that watching her ride the charger around is a little nerve wracking, but very cute. The kavat has taken to the leaper, and the leaper in turn very gently pets the kavat. It tried using the brush once, but the lack of hands made it too difficult. Maybe I’ll have to talk to Helminth about a fix for that.

 

We haven’t told anyone about our discovery just yet, not even our closest friends. We aren’t sure how others would react, though I think the time is coming soon to let others in on the secret. After all, just a few days after we left, the engineer and gardener called us.

 

They were willing to fight alongside us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After all, how in the world do we have friendly infested eximus units?


	6. Disrupted Mindsets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alad V is up to no good again.

Attention Tenno

My latest creations need a stress test.

Please have your ship cephalon make a

reservation at my new research center.

There will be rewards.

-The ever lovable Alad V-

 

We stared at the notice that Ordis projected onto the wall. Bastet and I fidgeted uncomfortably, Umbra sat as stoic as ever, and the charger and leaper just stared. They were the first to break the silence.

“ _What does that even say? We can’t read._ ” (Luckily Helminth’s creative implants translated their thoughts well enough.) After reading it out to them, they got excited. “ _Does that mean we’re gonna make friends?_ ”

“Uh, I really don’t think so,” my child said slowly. “You see, we’ve had a really bad history with Alad V, even more so than most other Tenno.” She glanced at Bastet, but quickly looked away.

_I’m ok now, I promise,_ Bastet said seriously. _If anything, I just want to wreck his shit again._

_Sounds like that’s a vote for seeing what this is,_ Umbra added matter-of-factly.

“ _We wanna see what this is! It sounds exciting!_ ”

“Well, if it comes to the worst, we can just run away.”

_It’s settled then,_ Umbra decided.

“Alright. Ordis, go ahead and sign us up, whatever that means.”

“But operator! Alad V- _is a sack of shiiii-_ should not be trusted! _Just look at what he did to Bas_ -“

“Enough!” my child shouted, trying to interject, but she wasn’t quite fast enough. I glanced over, and saw that Bastet was wrapping herself deeper in her cloak. Even though she may not be directly afraid of Alad V any more, she was still ashamed of the scars he left on her body. I thought furiously about a way to defuse the situation, but nothing came to mind. I witnessed her revenge on that man, so I knew just how hard it could be to get her into a good headspace.

“ _Is he why she looks so pretty?_ ” the leaper asked. Umbra, Bastet, my child and I looked absolutely dumbfounded at the creature. “ _What? She looks pretty! She reminds us of ourselves! Maybe a bit mixed up, but she stands proud!_ ”

_Proud… of my scars?_ While the infested kept chattering back and forth, I could practically see the thoughts going through her head. After a few minutes, she stood up a little straighter, and took off the cloak that she had been wearing since we started rehabilitating her. She looked down at her arms and front, tracing the lines in her skin. She gathered up the cloak, giving it back to my child. _I- I don’t think I’ll need this any more._ She turned around, and startled the leaper by giving it a hug, with a barely audible purr. _Thank you._

“ _Uh, you’re welcome?_ ” The poor thing was obviously baffled as it gently patted her back with a stubby arm.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you, Ordis, though we do still need that reservation.”

“No, operator, it’s Ordis’ fault. Bastet, please forgive Ordis.”

She nodded, walking over to a pillar of the ship, hugging “Ordis” too.

“Your reservation has been logged; we are to report to these coordinates in one week’s time.” Ordis marked a spot on Jupiter that we had never visited before.

“Thanks, Ordis.”

 

The debate as to who would go on the mission lasted for quite a while, but we all wanted to see what that despicable man was cooking up, so we all decided to go. We ended up having to take two landers, as our little family had grown to the point where we couldn’t fit into one any more. The infested were practically vibrating with excitement, but they had been drilled with the fact that they would have to fight, even kill, and that we likely wouldn’t be making friends. I think it got through to them, but guess we’ll have to see.

When we arrived, we were awestruck. Alad V always had some sense of grandeur, but this was the first lair of his that really showed it. It was far larger than most of the cities on Jupiter, but most of the doors we tried were locked, with no access panels.

Alad V’s voice came blaring over the speakers. “Welcome Tenno! Are you ready to fight for some pseudo-random rewards? Wait, what are those with you? Tenno, did you bring _infested_? My my, and I thought I was the only one to make deals with the devil. Come in! Come in! Let’s get started.”

We glanced at each other, shrugging. We followed the hallways that were lit, eventually reaching a door with a simple cipher on it. After cracking it, his voice came at us again. “Excellent! Now just put the keys in the conduits, and we can begin!”

Suddenly, Corpus units started swarming us, and the fight began. We spread out a bit, working in pairs. I fought alongside my child (this time in her Mesa), Bastet was with Umbra, and of course, the infested worked together. I had to stop myself from looking at them once in a while, as they were too distracting to watch. I didn’t even know the leaper could throw the charger that hard.

“Ooh, how scandalous, Alad has a backdoor! Shall we listen in?” Ordis murmured in our ears.

 

Pretty quickly, I noticed some strange-looking units coming at us. _These must be the sentient hybrids I’ve heard whispers of,_ I thought to myself between MOAs. I pointed, and my child lined up the shot. When they fell, I saw a strange looking item clatter away from its body. I picked it up and heard Alad’s voice over the speakers again. “Yes, yes, now put the key in the conduit!” I looked around, noticing a suspicious looking podium nearby. I slid the “key” on the podium, and promptly got shocked. I backed away from the terminal as Ordis fed me what Alad was saying. “Conduit activated! CT, send in a demolyst!”

_A demolyst? What the heck is that?_ My child shrugged, and the others were too far away to notice. We kept fighting for a while, but heard an odd noise coming from behind us. We turned around and saw a particularly ghastly fusion of sentient and corpus tech running towards the conduit. We watched as it completely ignored us, bending over the conduit. A moment later, it exploded violently, destroying the conduit and showering us with whatever it could call insides.

“Holy shit, holy shit! What the hell was that!” my child screamed.

“Haha, poor betrayers! Better luck with the next conduit!” Alad’s voice taunted us.

We ran to collect the others and update them on the situation. I kept the Corpus at bay with my magnetism while my child told them about the sick game of Alad’s that we were actually playing. Bastet shuddered, all too familiar with his cruelty.

“ _What if we tried talking to the demy-whatever? I’m sure blowing up is no fun! After all, whenever we blow up its because something went very wrong, and we’re hurting really bad!_ ” Once again, our infested compatriots were somehow the voice of reason. We nodded, agreeing to our plan.

 

After cleaving through even more of the mindless proxies plus occasional crewman, another amalgam dropped a key. Bastet picked it up, dropping it on the next podium. Ordis fed us Alad’s words again. “CT, it’s time for another demolyst!” _I wonder who CT is?_ I thought to myself.

We stood around the conduit, waiting for the demolyst to show up. I heard the same strange noise as before and pointed towards it. Umbra leapt in that direction, quickly finding the target. He knocked it down, pinning it to the floor. This one was a sentient-crewman hybrid.

“What are you doing?” my child asked.

“Please let me go it hurts so much just let me get to the thing he said if I go there the hurt would stop please let me go it hurts it hurts just let me go,” the demolyst kept babbling. I looked at the other two to gauge their reactions when I heard a whining noise coming from the demolyst. I dove for cover along with the others, but Umbra, being on top of the poor thing, couldn’t get off in time. He made a sizeable dent in the ceiling from how high the explosion sent him.

“Hmm, unorthodox, but I suppose you pass. I’ll send you part of your reward. Do continue to give me data.”

_I-I really don’t like the feel of this,_ Bastet stammered.

“ _I don’t think there’s going to be any friends at all here…_ ” the charger added, flinging a MOA out a window.

“Ordis, come pick us up now, please.”

As we boarded our ships, Alad’s voice called out to us again. “What, leaving already? Why not stay a while? Why not stay… Forever!”

“Ordis, get us the hell out of here.”

 

Back on the orbiter, nobody spoke for quite a while. Even the excitable infested were somber. At length, Ordis quietly told us that Alad V had been collecting combat data on us as we fought, possibly to try adjusting his experiment to challenge us, but more likely to send to someone.

_It’s probably good that we left so quickly, but I fear we may have tipped our hand too much even so._ Umbra motioned to our infested friends. _Do you think it was a mistake to bring them?_

_I don’t think so, after all, we didn’t even know what was going to happen,_ I countered.

_Do you think there was any way we could have saved them?_ Bastet mumbled.

We sat in silence again. Seeing more of Alad’s experiments being in pain must have been really hard on her. I reached over to give her a hug.

“I wonder where they came from. I mean, I guess I feel bad for them. The Corpus are still bad, right, but do even they deserve that?”

_Hmph, we shouldn’t feel bad for them. They crush others under their heels just for profit._ Umbra said, drawing a metaphorical line in the sand.

“Ordis agrees with Umbra, operator.”

_They’re still people, though, right? Maybe they had a family, like ours._ Bastet countered.

_I’m going to have to agree with Bastet on this one. I know all too well what it’s like to generalize too much. That’s how we met our infested friends, after all._ I lightly slapped the charger’s shoulder to emphasize my point.

“I mean, there’s even good Grineer out there. Look at Clem, or the people Steel Meridian take under their wing. Who should we be going after if there’s a chance they could be good people? Things were so much simpler when the Lotus told us what to do, and we just followed orders.” My child paused to take a breath. “Do you suppose we should just stop fighting unless they come after us first?”

We all sat back, thinking. The silence stretched for several minutes, only to be interrupted by my child’s stomach growling. She blushed, retreating to her quarters to get a snack.

_Perhaps she’s right,_ Umbra mused.

“ _Well if we have more friends, we’ll be happier, right?_ ”

_I’d say so,_ Bastet said, leaning against the leaper.

“ _Then let’s only kill the bad people!_ ” The charger exclaimed, stomping a foot.

“Well said. I’m sure the operator will be pleased.”

 

After some more discussion, we ultimately came to the decision that we should start showing the “tame” infested allies we had made to the other Tenno. After all, Alad V knew about them now, so we might as well keep spreading the word. My child called up some of her closest friends, and warned them profusely not to be shocked, but even still, the sight of our new crewmembers set every one of her friends sputtering. A couple immediately set off to find us, arriving a couple hours later. One hid behind his Aware Rhino (one of very few that I have seen), while another (one of the oldest Tenno I have seen, all of maybe 22 cycles?) just walked straight up to the leaper, brazen as could be. Needless to say, the infested were ecstatic to make new friends at last.

Despite our success at convincing them these infested were safe, we decided not to share with them the location of the derelict. We wanted to contact the ancients there before divulging any details like that.

 

I do fear for the future, though. We’ve all had our worldviews shaken so much recently, that I think we all feel lost. We’ve felt lost since the Lotus left, honestly. But without someone dictating our moves, the responsibility falls to us to determine right from wrong. I think I will go through the system with a more watchful eye to see if there are any potential allies to recruit.

Although, maybe we should get a bigger ship first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If only there were foreshadowing about possible friends :)


	7. Orre Klegra!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The family gets one member larger.

[Mini interlude]

 

I rue the day I was made. Life as a Grineer is suffering in the first place, but adding to that the particular curses that made their way into my template make my existence utter hell. But it’s not the allergy to the standard nutrient slurry that is the worst, nor is it the constant pains that my organs put me through, and it isn’t even the rot that’s slowly creeping up my legs. No, the worst part of what made it into my template is what they got _right_. My mind has the most amazing clarity, and for that I am endlessly frustrated. I look at my fellows, and I see mindless dogs, only around to follow orders, or I see animals hooked on a never-ending stream of painkillers, docile from the numbness alone. I insist on keeping my vision unclouded, so I never use the drugs. The pain is unceasing, yes, but it’s proof that I am alive.

It’s thanks to this that I am able to say I’ve made it to a solid middle age. I have lasted 12 years dodging the robots of the Corpus, and I am sick and tired of it. At the soonest opportunity, I transferred to a little base in the middle of nowhere, Mars. Let others have the glory of dying in a far-flung battle somewhere in the system. They’ll never be remembered anyways, just another statistic. I want to live my life quietly, until my heart cuts out and I fall over, just like that lancer did yesterday.

Unfortunately, it looks like my quiet life isn’t going to last forever. We got a suspicious cargo shipment today. I hope the retrieval ship comes soon, because I took a peek when nobody was looking, and it chilled me to the bone. It was missing most of an arm and a leg, but from the stories I had heard, I knew. In that crate was the remains of a Tenno. Its metal was tarnished, and there was a pretty sizeable chunk out of its chest too, but the thing in the crate wasn’t what scared me. I have heard whispers that the Tenno were back, and that they were very insistent on protecting their own.

But the prayers of a rotted clone aren’t meant to be answered.

 

The day after the crate came, I had the most intense pain in quite a while. I locked myself in my private quarters (being old has some perks), and spent several hours writhing in pain. At some point, I heard a couple people down the hall yell at something, but they went quiet fast enough that I ignored it. Once the pain had subsided, I crawled out of my room, deciding against putting on my armor for now. When I reached the end of the hallway, however, my nightmare began.

The couple of troops that I heard earlier were completely flattened, like something incredibly heavy had run over them. I looked down one direction to see many more of the same kind of corpse. But the other way held a fresh horror. The troops had been shooting each other, it seemed. I wandered through our little base, counting how many had fallen. I might have counted twice, maybe even three times, I was pretty delirious by that point. I was only sure of one thing any more: I was the last one living here.

 

The Tenno had gotten what they came for, and they certainly made a show of it. Not only was every single person exterminated, they had blown up our communications rooms as well as every single ship. I tried scraping together as much nutrient slop as I could, but what little I could find was the stuff I had an allergy to. I couldn’t stand the hives any more, so I tried subsisting on water alone.

My hopes got up once when I heard a ship flying outside. I tried to get to a place where they could see me, but by the time I made it outside, the ship was already leaving, apparently having seen enough to assume the worst.

It was then that I finally had enough. My screams and crying echoed over the desolate landscape.

 

I can’t take it; I have to try something.

I’m going to gather whatever slop hasn’t rotted, and as much water as I can carry.

Just for good measure, I’m taking my gun.

 

I’ve run out of slop, and the base is a distant memory. I’m pretty sure I took off in the right direction for the next closest encampment.

 

I’m almost out of water. I don’t remember the soil looking so gray.

 

Oh look at that, the ground said hi to my face. I wonder how much longer my air purifier is going to last.

 

[Mag]

 

We’re quite excited in our expanding family: we have a new ship building in the dojo. This one is going to be more of a cruiser, and it will actually have a full crew and battle stations! As much fun as it is to be so close with everyone else, our little orbiter is just too full. Having another ship where we can actually stretch our legs is going to be incredible. I’ve actually been spending most of my time flitting around the relays just to get some breathing room. I ran into that Valkyr and her operator again, and she asked how the “runt” was doing. I told her Bastet was excellent, and the Valkyr purred with joy. After that, she dragged her operator off to their ship for some reason. The pleading look on the poor little Tenno’s face was hilarious.

I’ve definitely found my favorite relay to be Strata. It’s always bustling with so much more life than the ones further out in the system, and seeing so many friendly faces makes me feel better about things as a whole. One of the best parts, though, is a Tenno that shows up once in a while outside Suda’s room. She brings her Octavia and a Helios and they play and sing the most delightful music. I leave a generous tip when I get a chance. I never got around to asking if the Octavia was Aware or if someone was piloting her. I’ll have to work up the courage to ask sometime.

 

Outside leisure, though, we’ve all been quietly sniffing around the system for potential allies for the fight to come. After our run in with Alad V, we were certain the sentients were going to come back in force, and possibly soon. Umbra actually managed to find us an odd ally already. Apparently, a low-level Corpus exec has a soft spot for some of the poorer villages in the system, and Umbra caught him in the act of giving aid. To buy his silence, the exec promised us dirt-cheap rates on proxies if we ever needed some.

My child has been networking with other Tenno, making sure that we would have support if ever we found ourselves in a bad position. At least, that’s what she told me. I’m pretty sure she just likes having a lot of friends. I’ve also noticed suspicious fluctuations in our credit balances recently, but that’s neither here nor there.

Bastet, for her part, has been doing more standard missions. We need to make a living somehow, since trying to find allies doesn’t always pay very well. I really appreciate her for doing that to help.

As for me? I’ve been flying around the planets, soaking myself in radio chatter to see if I could pick up any hints of traitors, defectors, or the like. Once in a while, when that becomes too much, I drop down to the planet to take a breather. On a pass over Venus, I intercepted a transmission describing how people kept disappearing in a small outpost, and how being assigned there was like being told to die. I was thoroughly bored, so I decided to check it out.

The outpost was actually kind of quaint. There was a central station where actual work was done, I assumed, and around it was a bunch of little individual houses for the workers. Nothing seemed to be too out of the ordinary, so I picked a medium-sized house and broke in to wait for the occupant.

I didn’t have to wait for too long, thankfully. I watched silently as the person came in, dressed in typical Scrambus attire. He took off his helmet, dropping it near the door, and wandered to the kitchen. After grabbing a bottle of something, he turned and finally noticed me. Shockingly, the only reaction he gave was a sigh as he sat down on the floor.

“I guess this is how the disappearances work? Are you finally here to kill me like you killed my wife a couple years ago?”

I cocked my head, baffled. I took out a notepad, and scribbled down **What do you mean?**

“Aren’t you guys the ones picking us off? The Grineer dogs aren’t nearly subtle enough to pull something like this off, and the Corpus execs just tend to banish people rather than assassinate low level grunts like us. I figured that the Tenno were just having fun picking on us.”

**I definitely haven’t heard of that, plus we generally aren’t that subtle either.**

“Hah, guess so.” He paused to take a long drink. “Well this is definitely the last straw. I’m sick of working for the Corpus, and the stress of working on this outpost is too much. I think I’m gonna ask you to make me disappear.”

**You sure you want that?**

“Yeah. Don’t care if you kill me, or just take me to a random place, but I’m done with Venus.”

**Would you fight for us?**

He stared at the note for quite a while before shaking his head. “I dunno, definitely not right now. I just need to rest. Maybe I’ll try farming.”

**Alright, follow me.** He chugged the rest of the bottle and threw it across the kitchen, letting it shatter on the floor. He laughed halfheartedly to himself and got up to follow. On the way out the door, he kicked his helmet.

 

I ended up dropping the poor guy with Konzu. He definitely didn’t trust the Scrambus at first,  but I assured him that I would take responsibility. I think that the air of wonder that the guy gave off at the Cetus market convinced Konzu that he meant no harm.

 

I confess that helping someone feels great. I’ve killed so many people in the past, and even when I go to rescue a hostage, I leave plenty of corpses in my wake. But to help someone out of the goodness of my heart with no casualties left me feeling almost giddy. Either that or I was listening to too much radio chatter. Is this how Zuud feels?

 

After laying a couple of Vay Hek’s ghouls back in the ground, I continued on my way. Nothing in particular stood out to me on the rest of Earth, so I continued to Mars. I’ve always loved the color on that planet, so I ended up skimming over the surface for a while. I noticed an outpost that had been wrecked so badly a part of it was still smoking. A quick scan showed that there weren’t any living people inside. I continued on for a little while before doubling back. Something glinted at me from the ground below, and since I was so far from anything, I got suspicious. Flying a little lower, I saw it was a Grineer heavy gunner. _Huh, wonder how the hell she got this far from any bases. Did she jump out of a ship?_   
I almost left, assuming she was dead, but some part of me decided it was worth a scan. To my surprise, she was still alive, but only barely. I rushed down, hauled her onto my lander, and pried off her mask. I rummaged around in the little pile of snacks my child left onboard, luckily finding a bottle of water. I gently poured some into the gunner’s mouth and waited.

A moment later, she coughed the water back out, but very weakly. I gave her some more, and she actually drank it this time. After finishing the bottle, I flew her back to the orbiter, presenting her to Helminth. If a couple of tentacles tied to a chair can give a judgmental look, they certainly succeeded.

 

After Helminth finished getting her back to good health, she started freaking out. Apparently suffering from dehydration and starvation, then waking up in a chair attended by infestation isn’t exactly a fun experience. I rushed in, trying to get her to calm down, but apparently that just made things worse. Her eyes bugged out upon seeing me, and she screamed “Tenno skoom!” She glanced around for a weapon, but finding none, she shrank back in the chair, terrified. I held up my hands to show they were empty, and she flinched, looking about to pass out.

I gave up and went to get my child. She cautiously approached the gunner, while I waited just around the door in case something bad happened. She started talking in a soothing voice, telling the Grineer everything was going to be fine. The gunner eventually worked up enough courage to try responding.

“Where at I?”

“You’re on our orbiter. Mag found you passed out on Mars, and apparently saved you just in time.”

She shrank back but had a puzzled look on her face. “Tenno skoom, save me?”

“I guess she did. You never told my why you picked her up.” I shrugged.

The charger wandered over to greet our new guest. “ _Helminth says your insides are all messed up! She recommends replacing them with ones based off of Lily’s!_ ”

That was too much for the poor gunner, and she passed out. I was sent reeling in my own way. _Helminth is a girl?!_

“ _Well yeah! She says you never asked, though._ ”

My child giggled at this. Thinking for a moment, she agreed that making new organs would probably be a good idea, as we definitely didn’t have any Grineer nutrient slurry on hand. Actually, none of us even knew the first thing about how to care for Grineer bodies. I guess Helminth would have to be the go-to caretaker. It, I mean she, hasn’t failed us with us warframes or my child’s body yet.

The gunner woke up pretty quickly, and my child asked if she wanted to have Helminth try to make her body better.

“Will hurt?”

“No, you won’t notice a thing.”

“Will pain go ‘way?”

“Yes, you’ll feel much better afterward.”

After much hesitation, the gunner nodded. “One more ask. Why cover face?”

My child reached up to the pink blindfold she never took off. I saw her think for a moment before removing it, showing the gunner the extensive void scarring around her eyes and forehead. The Grineer actually relaxed at this. “You scar like me.” She held out a hand, and my child took it in both of hers. Even just seeing an imperfect face was enough to set her at ease, which I suppose is good in its own way.

 

In order to work her magic, Helminth needed the gunner’s armor to come off. As I helped her out of it, the things I saw burned themselves in my memory. The infested look like art compared to a decaying Grineer. _How in the world can they keep living like this?_ I wondered to myself.

My child had to stay in the room with Helminth for the whole operation to ensure a proper model was followed. Sometimes I’m glad Helminth closes the doors. When they opened again, I was shocked. The Grineer had completely new skin, and actually looked alive for once. After helping her back into her armor, we sat down for a longer conversation.

She told us about how her template had gotten botched, giving her actual mental clarity, (guess that explains how well she rolled with the situation) and how much she loathed working with other Grineer, and how she wanted nothing more than to do something, anything else. She continued to describe how her base had been destroyed by Tenno trying to recover one of their own. We shrugged, not knowing who it could have been. After assuring her that she was safe with us, she offered her services to my child.

“No trust Tenno,” she said glancing at me, “but trust you.”

“Oh, I think you’re mistaken. I’m actually the Tenno, those are warframes.”

Her baffled look led to a short history lesson. After hearing about us, she sighed, putting her head in her hands. “All life, lie.”

“No, that’s not true. It’s just that we tend to keep it secret.” Hearing that made the gunner pale a little. “Don’t worry, we won’t kill you. Just try to keep it under wraps.”

My child took the gunner on a tour of the orbiter and introduced the rest of our little family. After introducing the others, my child turned to her. “Actually, what’s your name?”

She shook her head. “No name, number.” She pointed to her shoulder, where we saw the serial number AHG-2958-4993-1206.

“Uh, that’s a bit of a mouthful. You deserve to have a better name. Let’s see… naming you after your gun seems silly, but…”

“May Ordis propose the name Evryali?”

“I won’t even bother to ask where you came up with that, but it’s good enough for me. Do you like it?”

“Eryali… will do. Thank, ship voice.”

_She can’t pronounce her new name yet, that’s kind of sad._ My child kicked me under the table. Guess it’s good only she and the other ‘frames can hear me sometimes.

 

Adding Evryali to the mix was definitely the tipping point for us. We just didn’t have enough room in the orbiter for everyone to fit comfortably. I guess until the new ship finishes building in the dojo, we’re going to have to crash at the derelict with the engineer and gardener. I certainly don’t mind, as they are such wonderful people, but our new gunner friend just about passed out again when we visited with her. Poor thing, she’s got a lot of adjustments to make with her new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you squint, you can finally see my operator's name.


	8. A rare bit of R and R

We’ve been having quite a lot of fun with the infested, actually. I couldn’t say quite the same for Evryali, at the start, unfortunately. It could be that she was actually the only sensible one left, but even she is beginning to accept our misshapen friends. I think she actually feels most at home with the ancients, as they are far calmer than the rest of the crew. After a week onboard the derelict, we even managed to convince her to take off her mask.

The one thing that she is beginning to find a passion for is experimenting with mutalist weapons. The engineer had shown her how his previously Corpus proxies worked, and she found the concept utterly fascinating. She offered up her gorgon to the engineer, explaining that she wanted to see what would happen. The engineer was absolutely thrilled at this, as he hadn’t had a new project in easily a century, and the odd pair got to work. I’m pretty sure that the first thing I saw it shooting after their experiments looked like teeth, but I’m sure I don’t want to know.

Umbra’s still wrestling with the chargers, and while he has definitely gotten stronger, with the new sparring partner the chargers have actually made more progress. They’ve got so many tricks up their sleeves now that he has to resort to using his blinding flash to even stand a chance. (I definitely am not secretly rooting for the chargers to put him in his place. That would be silly.)

Bastet, for her part, managed to finally complete the leaper’s obstacle course. Her times are still a bit behind theirs, but she’s getting better. Bastet has shown the glory that is floofs to the bipedal infested, and those that have some amount of dexterity in their hands left have tried making their own. It was probably the strangest shopping trip I’ve done on Cetus to get all that fabric, and I am fairly sure that the shopkeeper told Konzu about my uncharacteristic purchase. The runners and leapers work in teams of three, two to hold the fabrics together, and one to use the sewing needle. Their first creation was… definitely something. I think I’ll have to ask them what they were going for. Regardless, they were very proud of their creation, and the ancients praised them for the accomplishment.

My child and I have been working with the gardener. I think that my child likes the change of pace from the constant missions that Tenno are expected to perform. Sitting back for days before a noticeable change is wrought by our tool is the longest form of meditation we’ve ever practiced. Whenever we move the infested matter, my child will usually pilot me. Sharing our minds for such a long time feels good, it reminds me of the time when she first found me, back when life was less complicated. The two of us would share ideas at the speed of thought, nudge the growths a bit, and then patiently watch.

My child chatted with the gardener and Helminth once to see if it was possible to make a faster-moving form of that strain, as she could see some potential for using it to build ships, or even change battlefields in a meaningful amount of time. They said they’d work on it, and I am eager to see what they come up with.

But it’s not all good news, unfortunately. The old one did finally enter the permanent sleep two weeks after we came back. I’m actually happy for him, as he had been alive since the Old War, so to be finally allowed to die must have been a blessing. Everyone gathered around to pay their respects, but the infested weren’t as sad as I thought they would be. When I asked our charger friend why, it responded, “a part of him is always going to be with us,” it tapped its head with a paw. “So there’s no reason to be sad!” I have so much to learn from these creatures.

 

One day, when I was working in the garden with my child, we saw a disturbing sight. We had just put the finishing touches on the very top of a “tree,” when I turned around to see my child’s face, grinning grotesquely at me. She said, “hey, kiddo, you’ve got some messed up friends here. I think I almost approve!” I felt my child’s mind recoil in shock at this, and I fell out of the tree, landing hard on my back. As I fell, the specter cackled, dissolving into motes of light.

_What was that?_ I felt her think.

_I don’t know, but it looked exactly like you._

_And it called me kiddo…_

_Why is that important?_

_Because… that’s what my parents called me._

My rough equivalent to blood ran cold. This specter put on a mockery of my child’s face, and called her by the nickname her parents had? Everything about this felt wrong.

_We need to talk to the other Tenno and see if they know anything._

I got up, my back still tender from the fall, and headed to the orbiter. We left without telling the others anything, not wanting to interrupt their festivities.

 

When we got to the nearest relay, it was far fuller than I remembered. There were numerous Tenno clamoring with each other. We asked the nearest group what they were talking about, and heard a story very similar to our own. Apparently, at roughly the same time as us, just about every Tenno had received a similar vision to us. A specter wearing the appearance of the operator appeared, mocking them with endearing terms used by deceased family members from the Zariman. Nobody had very much information as to what the thing was, though a rumor that was being spread was it had something to do with Red Veil. Some of them had been going off their rocker recently. This was mostly speculation, however, since nobody had any concrete information. My child had Ordis connect with their cephalons so that any information they found out could be quickly sent to us.

On our way out, we ran into Valkyr and her operator (wonder how I keep running into them). They reported the same vision again, and we brought them up to speed. I saw that her operator was shaking and clinging to her side, so I had my child invite them to our orbiter for a while. Behind her operator’s back, I saw Valkyr thank us.

 

We chatted with the pair for a couple hours, after which her operator, whose name I finally learned was Kael, finally stopped shaking. Upon closer inspection, he’s on the far youngest side of the Tenno I have seen, easily six years younger than my child. He’s also the most cowardly Tenno I have ever met, so it’s probably good that he has such a strong Valkyr to support him.

While the two children chatted, Valkyr pulled me aside.

_I really appreciate you doing this. Kael’s always been pretty socially stunted, so it’s hard for him to make friends. Aside from that, the appearance of… whatever that was really scared us._

_Don’t worry about it, we’re happy to help. We were just as scared as everyone else, after all. I actually fell out of a tree when it appeared, and I had a bad landing._

She giggled at that. I really love the sound of Valkyr units laughing. _I was on a mission on Europa, and I slid right into a wall when it popped up. I think the mark I left is still there, too._

I shook my shoulders in my best approximation of a laugh. _Poor wall, it didn’t deserve such rough treatment!_

Valkyr giggled again, but we both sobered fairly quickly.

_I wonder what this means for the future,_ Valkyr wrote.

_I don’t know, but it can’t be good._ I glanced over at the children. _We need to protect them._

_Always. The day anything harms him is the day I no longer exist._

Umbra chose that moment to contact us. He projected himself on the window of my child’s quarters, asking us where we had gone. A charger tackled him, and he cackled as he pushed it off, after which he leaned on its side, stroking its back.

Kael passed out. Valkyr slowly turned to look at me, and I could feel the murderous intent coming off of her even before her claws shimmered to life. _Dammit, Umbra, why now of all times?_ She backed me into a corner, and looked at my child, the message clear.

“Wait, it’s not what it looks like, they’re actually nice infestation, and they can’t actually infect anything anymore, and they just want to make friends…” she started babbling. After she paused to take a breath and gather her thoughts, she put forth a better explanation.

After a few tense minutes, Valkyr backed off. _You get one chance. If I don’t approve, well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that._

Of all the times in my life, this was the single most terrifying moment. I got into the lander, Valkyr immediately behind me. We flew to the derelict and walked inside. Over the speakers, the engineer greeted me. “ _Welcome back miss Mag._ ” Valkyr started, giving me a look. We kept walking, eventually running into a small group of chargers. One looked over at us, and barked out, “ _Mag’s back!_ ” They lumbered up to me, chattering their questions about where I had been and such. Eventually, they noticed Valkyr standing behind us.

“ _Hey, miss Mag, did you bring another new friend?_ ”

_I hope so. She isn’t sure what to think of you, so please give her some space._

Just as I was telling them this, however, one walked up to Valkyr, pawing at her arm. “ _Hey, you look really pretty! What’s your name?_ ”

I froze, scared of how she might react. Several tense moments went by before she started to laugh. She shook her head, putting her hand to a cheek. _Tame infested? I wasn’t ready to believe you, but you were right. You said that they aren’t infectious, right?_

I nodded mutely.

_Ahaha! This’ll be a perfect way to get Kael to stop being so scared of everything! Let’s go get him!_

I leaned on one of the chargers, hard. I guess the dopey charm of the chargers won her over. But now I had a new fear. I hope Kael survives Valkyr’s ~~torture~~ forced socialization.

 

When Bastet heard another Valkyr was here she came running. Seeing one of her past comrades, she leaped at her, and they embraced. Kael was clinging to Valkyr’s waist, a couple of the more curious infested creeping toward him. Evryali came up too, shaking hands with Valkyr and stooping to say hi to her child. She popped off her mask, and the smooth skin of her repaired face set him at ease. He held out his own hand to be shaken, which the Grineer took. Valkyr laughed, amazed that he was adjusting so fast, and slapped Evryali on the back. She didn’t stumble, and even returned the gesture. It was then that I noticed just how tall the gunner was. Valkyr was nearly half a head taller than me, but Evryali towered above her from the shoulders up. _Those two are going to get along just fine,_ I thought to myself.

 

It only took a few days for Kael to get adjusted to the infested, surprisingly. Valkyr was actually quite taken with them and encouraged us to tell the other Tenno about them. Since she was more well-known than us, I told her to spread the word, as she would be more believable. She nodded, asking if they could take one of the infested back with them. I said that she should just ask them herself, so she did. I believe she managed to draft two chargers and a runner, which shows how magnetic a personality she has, I guess.

I sat back with the gardener the next day. _Guess the kavat’s out of the bag now, eh?_

She nodded slowly. _It was bound to happen eventually. It’s good that we were found by such kind people._

 

Over the next several weeks, a handful of Tenno came to check the derelict out. Those that got enough trust from the infested ended up bringing one or two of them on missions, giving those infested some very interesting stories to tell the others. None of the other Tenno spent much time with the infested, though, preferring to drop them back off at the derelict after the mission. So far, none of them have come back with much more than a scratch, which makes us, especially the ancients, very glad. (If the little ones are to be believed, it was thanks to them that the missions went so well, in fact. Apparently, the leapers are phenomenal at spy vaults when equipped with ciphers.)

Everyone is in high spirits nowadays. The derelict feels like home to us now.


	9. Death and Rebirth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my new beta reader for helping me. Hopefully, my writing will be a bit better now, and some of the works might get totally overhauled.

_ I hate Grineer data vaults. At least with Corpus vaults, the layout makes sense, and there’s a logical way to get through them. But with Grineer engineers, they look at a room and say, “What if we had a random pipe here? Ooh, what if there was a laser door over there?” and it always seems that the random pipe is the best way to get to the consoles, but my hips are too big to fit, so I end up just barging through, ignoring the alarms. Shut up, Umbra, I am definitely not rambling. _

Umbra raised his hands, shaking his head innocently.

Bastet laughed, stroking the leaper that made our mission successful.  _ Sounds like you’re losing your touch, Mag. Maybe you need to go on missions more often! _

I crossed my arms, turning my face away.

_ Other than… getting stuck… your mission went alright, yes? _ The engineer looked at me, having finished healing our charger’s scratches.

_ Yes, everything went fine. Well, there was one odd thing. _ I paused to recall the moment. _ A handful of Grineer were in an odd spot, so I pulled them with my power to knock them out, but one of them wasn’t wearing any armor at all, so they got crushed by the others. When I checked afterward, though, there was no body. I don’t think I’m hallucinating, but there’s just no way that Grineer could have survived. _

_ Well we didn’t see anything odd! And we didn’t get stuck either! _ The charger waggled its tail in a manner that vibrated its whole body.

_ We’re very proud of you, little ones. _ The charger nuzzled the gardener.

I took the fact that I need to get back in the game seriously. I worked my way through the leapers’ obstacle course, discovering that if I alter my magnetic fields just right, I can maintain a weak form of flight. I certainly am not as dexterous as a Zephyr, but I’d say it’s quite an accomplishment.

The downside is that this only works when the surroundings are mostly made of metal, but that only should be an issue on Cetus, I would imagine. Oh yeah, and it takes a lot of energy to pull off, too.

Training aside, our pacifistic lifestyle is actually working out pretty well. Information is power, and people will pay quite a lot if you have the right kind. Pitting different corpus factions against each other brings in quite a pretty penny. Most of our money has been going to the construction of a new, bigger ship so that we can all comfortably travel again. The derelict is actually pretty nice as a home base, but it’s a bit too stationary to be useful. 

 

Just days before we were slated to get our new ship, we received an unnerving transmission. Ordis routed us a child’s voice, tinged with the familiar static of a message from the void.  _ “Everyone, we’re being attacked. We need backup, and someone to collect our escape pods. We’re evacuating as fast as we can, but with the damage they are doing to our dojo, we don’t think we’ll last long. Please, hurry!” _

We were halfway across the system from their location, but we sprang into action anyways. By the time we arrived, probably half of the Tenno were gathered at the site, ships as far as the eye could see. From the radio chatter, we picked up that all of the escape pods were secured, but that the dojo was completely destroyed. I climbed out of the ship and put on my archwing to take a closer look.

Many other frames had a similar idea, as there was quite the flurry of activity around the wrecked dojo. The massive slugs buried in the walls left no illusions as to who had done this, but the better question was how the Grineer had managed to find, let alone destroy it. Between all of us searching the place, we found that there were in fact casualties: one Aware Nezha that some of us had known, as well as two young Tenno.

The realization that the Grineer were capable of doing this sent massive waves through our ranks. Most clans started the arduous process of moving their dojo ships, while the only largest clans set up patrols to ensure that their buildings were safe. We who had been part of the destroyed clan salvaged what little we could from the wreckage, and joined up with others, scattering to where we felt safe. Our crew gathered bits of what was going to be our new ship, which pretty much amounted to some relatively intact pieces of the hull and two out of the six engines.

After most of the clamor died down, we held a funeral for those that had died. The Tenno were unsure of how exactly we should proceed, given that none of their number had been killed before, so we brought the bodies to Konzu to ask for his wisdom.

We held the funeral rites on the Plains, and watched as the pyre sent the fallen ones to the next life. 

“We’re all in this one together, Tenno. This is but one dark night in our life, and surely, there will be more. You, as my uncle did, fought to protect your universe. Your home. To protect all of us. Know this, Tenno: this place, our voice, will echo forever as a welcome, a beacon. Day will come, as it has before. We weather the nights together, and praise the sun when it rises. We die, yes. Others live on. Cetus will always remain. Your home. Our home, Tenno. The Unum was not mistaken in bringing you to us. Your trouble is ours, and together we will defeat the Grineer. The Tenno must survive. The Tenno  _ will  _ survive.” 

During the ceremony, just barely out of the corner of my vision, I could see a duplicate of some of the Tenno in attendance pop into existence once in a while. Sometimes the duplicate was crying, other times it had its mouth open in a silent scream. Most often, however, it simply stared with a burning hatred into the sky. I’m sure the others noticed it too, but nobody said anything.

 

After the funeral, the clans had a massive conference. We had always felt safe, but to see that changing was alarming. As such, the whole assembly agreed to be on the lookout for those that had done this, and to share information about any hints freely, no matter how small. 

 

We returned to the derelict with our small pile of salvage and brought the infested up to speed on the incident. The ancients sat down hard, distressed at the news, while many of the little ones milled about, unsure of what to do. We debated with them for a while, eventually landing on a decision: we needed to move our base. Whether that meant somehow getting the derelict to move as a whole, or just relocating the infested to a new ship, we were still deciding. In the meantime, the ancients, Evryali and I got to work on figuring out how to use what salvage we had to build a new ship.

We had just finished developing our accelerated strain of the structural infestation, so we put it to use trying to copy the engines we salvaged. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a total failure, as the engines were just too complicated for the new strain to handle. Instead, we used it to start building the hull for our new ship out of the scrap we gathered in addition to some of the derelict’s material. I placed an order for additional engines through Umbra’s Corpus connection, and we were able to pick them up the next day.

 

Progress on our new ship progressed rapidly, and within two weeks we had finished it. The ship was large enough to comfortably fit all of the infested in it, and it was able to merge with our current orbiter. Naturally, this freaked Ordis out some, but even he had gotten used to the infested at this point. During our construction, I had accidentally gotten some of the structural strain on my syndana, but the way it took over actually looked really cool, so I let it be. After all, who doesn’t want to have tiny flapping fins on your back? After some experimentation, I discovered that I could coax the structural strain into growths on my shoulders, and that I could tear off pieces of it to use in our engineering.

During this time, very little was discovered as to the identity of our adversary. The Tenno had cracked just about every Grineer data center we knew of, even discovering a few more, but none of them had any information at all. Some of the crueler ones among our ranks had tried torturing captured soldiers, but none of the victims had heard of anything either.

 

Just as we were starting to despair, we got another broad alert.  _ “Tenno, backup requested, current adversary believed to be the murderer due to excessive strength. We will attempt to learn as much as possible, but our frames can’t last much longer; I’ve already lost mine.” _

The message originated from one of Saturn’s moons, only a minute away by void travel. Umbra, Bastet and I rushed to the lander, followed closely behind by my child’s Trinity.

 

When we arrived, we raced towards the signals of those that were struggling, while at the same time observing the carnage left in the wake of the battle. When we reached the scene, we paused in shock. A single Grineer was facing off against a horribly wounded Atlas, a bunch of strange looking backups cheering him on. Before we could engage, however, the Atlas raised massive stone walls around a little building behind him. At the same time, a series of spikes erupted from the ground, skewering him from every direction. His fingers twitched once before his body stood still. 

“Was that–was that Nezha’s spikes?!” My child was the first to react.

_ I think so… What in the world is going on here? _ Umbra added.

A loud  _ BOOM _ interrupted the rest of our conversation and we turned to see that the powerful Grineer had started attacking the walls Atlas had created. He was pummeling them, and with each successive punch we heard the impact get louder. We saw stone growing around his fists, and with that, we realized what was happening.

_ He can steal our powers!  _ I shouted to the others.  _ We need to be careful! _

_ We don’t have time for that, there’s still someone left in the building! _ Umbra retorted.

Bastet, however, was set off by seeing another warframe die. She screamed, leaping into battle.

Without hesitation, Umbra and I followed, while my child quickly set up an emergency beacon before following us. 

The Grineer turned to us, and I swear I could feel him roll his eyes. “Oh  _ no _ , some more of the Tenno are here to  _ stop _ me. I thought I had more time!” He looked at Bastet, and stomped on the ground. A series of spikes tried to impale her, but her aura deflected them. This seemed to give the Grineer some pause, but he raised his stone-clad fists and met her head-on.

While they were brawling, the rest of us dealt with his comrades. They were much stronger than they should have been, and if it weren’t for my child’s support, Umbra and I would have been in serious trouble. I’m not sure what kind of alloy their armor was made of, but my magnetism barely affected it at range. I laid down supporting fire while Umbra got in the thick of them. Not hitting him was easy enough, given how many of them there were, but I could tell that Umbra was struggling. Before we could make much headway, a blast from a stray ogris rocket knocked me against a wall. 

I sat there, dazed for a moment, and when I stood up, I felt a tug at my shoulder. Some of the infested matter had started bonding to the wall, altering it. With a flash of inspiration, I ripped more of the material out, and threw it at the Grineer surrounding Umbra. Most of the material missed, but the few clumps that landed erupted into action, welding their armor together and spreading among them like wildfire. The growths didn’t extend into them, but a few still died when their armor twisted them too far. Umbra fell to his knees, dark blood pouring out of several wounds I hadn’t noticed before. My child, through Trinity, rushed to give him aid, though I knew it was only a temporary measure.

As I turned to the other part of the battle, I was met by Bastet flying in my direction, and I got knocked into a wall again. I looked up, woozy, as the Grineer stomped towards us. “What marvelous specimens you are! It makes me want to kill you all, to become  _ one _ with you all!” He loomed over us, a stone fist raised.

Before he could bring it down on us, a bullet smashed into his fist, sending him staggering. I looked up, and was glad to see that more backup had arrived. A Harrow was lining up for another shot, while two Rhinos and a Hildryn raced towards us. The Grineer quickly recovered his composure, saying, “What a shame, and I was having  _ so _ much  _ fun! _ ” before disappearing in a familiar swirl of Nova’s wormhole. Before any of us could react, the wormhole closed, and the Harrow’s next shot pinged off of a wall.

The burly backup slowed as they approached, taking stock of the situation. I rolled Bastet off of me, and she groaned at the movement. Shakily, I got to my feet to greet the others.

_ So what happened here? _ The Hildryn said after a moment’s pause.

_ We responded to the distress call as fast as we could, but we were too late. _ I pointed at the body of the Atlas, still suspended by a myriad of spikes.  _ I think he was protecting someone in that building, though, so they might still be alive. _

The three nodded, flexing as they turned to finish digging the hole the Grineer started.

_ Wait, there’s one more thing! _ The trio paused.  _ That Grineer, he can steal our abilities if he kills us! _

I could see their mental jaws drop. A young girl’s voice came from one of the Rhino units. “Are you sure? He wasn’t just doing imitations?”

_ Yes, I’m sure. He killed Atlas with Nezha’s spikes, and immediately after was able to use stone fists like Atlas can. I don’t know where he got Nova’s wormhole, though. _

The other Rhino added a more mature male voice. “About that, we saw the remains of a Nova the direction we came in.”

I stood in silence while the three finished opening a hole in the wall. Once it had been breached, we heard a soft keening from inside the room. A Banshee was huddled against the far wall, clutching at the stub where her left arm used to be. As we cautiously approached, she cringed, before realizing we were friendly.  _ Is it-is it over? _

_ Yes, you’re safe now, _ Hildryn said, scooping her up.

Banshee laid her head on Hildryn’s shoulder.  _ What about our escort, is she safe? _

“What escort?” said the mature Rhino operator.

_ We were here to rescue a Steel Meridian operative, but I lost them when we got attacked… _

_ Shh, we’ll look for her,  _ Hildryn said, gently rocking Banshee as she walked out.

After we had all filed out of the room, a part of Atlas’ wall peeled away, quickly materializing  itself into a Loki. I jumped a bit, still twitchy from the battle. The Rhinos and I turned to address him. The Loki creeped towards us, his shoulders slumped, gaze roaming to look everywhere except at Atlas.

_ When we got attacked, I wasn’t sure what to do... I-I cloaked myself and the operative, and got her to extraction. But now, I come back to this… _

“I’m sorry, but both Atlas and Nova died,” the female operator said.

_ And Banshee? _ Loki asked, a quiver in his voice.

_ She’s fine, the Hildryn is taking her to a ship. _

The Loki’s shoulders sagged.  _ Thank goodness, that’s the best outcome we could hope for. _

“The hell do you mean?” the male operator asked, a hard edge to his voice.

The Loki shrank back.  _ I just meant that the ones who died weren’t Aware, Banshee and I are the only ones in the squad. Those were our operators’ frames. _

I patted him on the shoulder.  _ I understand, it’s good that you survived. You should get back to your operators, though, I’m sure they’re worried about you. _

He nodded, running after Hildryn.

I said my goodbyes to the others, then my child and I helped Umbra back to our lander while Bastet limped behind us, our heads hanging low.

 

When we got back to the orbiter, we put Umbra in Helminth’s chair and were promptly shooed out as she got to work. Bastet and I went to the ancients to be looked over, and we updated them on the situation. They were distressed at the news. My child was shaking from the experience, but she had been unusually quiet. I went over to hug her, and she returned the embrace, burying her face in my chest.

“What are we going to do?”

_ Well, that’s pretty simple, I’d say. We’re going to annihilate that piece of shit. _

She nodded, letting go of me to greet the other infested.

I made my way to Evryali.  _ Hey, have you heard of Grineer technology that lets them steal warframe abilities? _

She thought for a brief moment then shook her head. “That sounds more like a Corpus thing to do, we are not really smart enough to come up with a way to do that.”

I paused for a moment, shocked at how clear her voice was. I guess Helminth’s surgeries really can do wonders.  _ Regardless, it was definitely Grineer we were against. Their armor looked different than any I have seen, though; it was streaked with red and black. _

Evryali’s head perked up. “What? But those are the colors of the Queens… I didn’t even think they existed!”

_ The Queens? You mean the Grineer Queens? _

“I think so. If they have something to do with this, then we are in serious trouble.”

I looked her in the eye.  _ We need to tell the others about this. The more we know, the better chance we stand at defeating whoever this is. _

Evryali nodded. “I don’t know much, but I can share the rumors we have about the Queens.”

Before she could elaborate, an explosion rocked the derelict. A few of the infested screeched in alarm, while my child was knocked to her knees. I raced to the engineer to ask what was happening.

_ “Someone just boarded the ship, though there’s only one person. It looks like-” _ the engineer paused, then glanced at me.  _ “It looks like a Grineer.” _

My blood ran cold. How had he already found us?  _ We need to evacuate everyone, he’s too dangerous to confront right now! _

The engineer sent out a broadcast to the derelict, commanding everyone to go to the newly constructed ship. While they were running, the ancients and I started sealing as many hallways as we could to buy time. Some of the chargers stayed behind as well, waiting to make sure everyone else escaped safely. When about three quarters of them had escaped, the Grineer erupted through a wall in the garden.

“How  _ rude _ to ignore a guest! Though I must say, Tenno, you have  _ disgusting _ partners here.”

After the briefest hesitation, the chargers sprang into action. As they did, I heard a scream from behind me. To my horror, my child was still on the derelict.  _ What are you doing?! Get out of here! _ She cowered against the wall, so I ran to pick her up. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw that despite outnumbering him, the chargers were getting the shit beat out of them. One dragged itself towards the ship, both back legs torn off. I knew I didn’t have much time, so I started running. 

From behind me, the Grineer called out, “Oh where do you think  _ you’re  _ going?” A moment later, I was knocked over by a piece of a charger he threw at me. My child went sprawling, and I’m pretty sure I heard something snap. The Grineer wasn’t done with us yet, however. He took out a gun, and fired a single round in our direction. I cringed, but the shot went wide, and for a moment, I thought everything was going to be alright. But when the shot connected with the wall, it exploded into a spray of liquid. Some of it landed on me, and I felt the sizzle as it started eating through my skin. A horrifying screech came from my child, and I looked up to see that quite a bit of it had landed on her, marring her entire torso. Some of the acid even landed on a large infested boil.

The entire ship shuddered at this. Tendrils of the infested matter started writhing, while some of the walls started changing shape. A barrier started going up between us and the Grineer as the ship itself started attacking him. Slowly at first, but with growing intensity, pieces of the floor and walls started lunging at him. For the first time, the Grineer seemed uncertain of what was going on. He was dodging attacks from an omnipotent enemy, one that probably couldn’t be killed. As he started to retreat, the exits all sealed themselves. I wondered why he didn’t wormhole away, but I suppose he needed line of sight to use it properly. He beat the walls, each punch gouging a hole that was just as quickly sealed by the infestation. He howled in annoyance, punching harder, faster. I whipped around to my child. Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes unfocused. I carefully gathered her up, bringing her onto the orbiter, the Grineer’s raging fading into the background.

I felt a small wave of relief as the door closed behind me.  _ Everyone’s clear, we need to go. _ Ordis squeaked an affirmative, flying the ships away as quickly as possible.

Once we had reached a safe distance, the derelict appeared to fold in on itself. It started glowing, quickly ramping up in intensity until the whole ship detonated into a flurry of metal and burned biological material

_ The derelict gave itself to protect us… _ I thought, dazed.

“Do you think- _ that fuckerrrrr- _ that Grineer is dead?”

_ I really wish I could say yes, Ordis. _

I kicked the door to our infirmary, and it opened, a patched-up Umbra shakily rising from the chair.  _ What’s going–Lily! _ He rushed over to look at her, his concern palpable. I gently put her where Umbra had been sitting, and watched as Helminth’s tendrils gently prodded my child. I could see her ribs sticking through in some spots, and while there wasn’t much blood, the damage was severe enough that I wasn’t sure she would survive. Umbra and I left the room, settling against the wall just outside. I leaned against him, and he put his arm around my shoulders. I had never been so scared in my life, but it helped to have him there.

Not long after, heavy footsteps hurried towards us. Both of the ancients rushed by and into Helminth’s room. A dark seed of dread settled deep in my heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kuva lich system was a bit of a disappointment, there's no emotional impact behind it beyond annoyance.


End file.
